


Family Means Nobody Gets Left Behind

by orphan_account



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Non-Binary Frisk, Self-Harm, Sharing a Body, Soft Chara, Suicide Attempt, extremely fluffy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-11
Updated: 2016-02-03
Packaged: 2018-05-13 05:07:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 18
Words: 54,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5696134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Frisk isn't satisfied with the 'happy ending', and finds themselves going back for a better one over and over with no success.<br/>Why are they going back? Why, Asriel, of course.</p><p>Self-Harm trigger warning for Chapter 5.<br/>Also, contains cute stuff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Never written fanfiction before. Undertale had to come along and change that.  
> With that in mind, I apologize for the short chapters as I haven't written anything in a long time. I hope you enjoy it!

Warm light filtered down from the chasm above, pooling down at their feet onto the bed of golden flowers. This and Asgore’s throne room were the only places in the Underground where there was sunlight. The flowers swayed in the wafts of cool air rushing down through the opening, occasionally orienting their petals just the right angle to cast a slight glare into their eyes. They were very shiny. Some of them held small droplets of water, but it hadn’t been raining. A lot of the flowers appeared damaged to varying degrees, as if someone had been rolling around on them or clawing at them. Frisk always felt uncomfortable coming here. It was because of the voice in their head, which always insisted upon them leaving and eventually zoning out entirely so that Frisk didn’t even know it was there. The voice had been there since the first time they had fallen down, but they couldn’t really just call it a voice anymore. The voice’s grip on Frisk’s soul grew tighter and tighter over time. Although it was psychopathic, depressed, and often asked Frisk to kill others, eventually they settled their differences and became friends, but that was a guarantee anyway considering that they were probably stuck together for life as far as they knew. He and Frisk stood in the cavern, perfectly still.

“…Maybe Chara wasn’t the greatest person after all.” They felt themselves cringing. But it wasn’t them?

It was no longer clear to them which “time” it was this time around, but that wouldn’t matter until they got their soon-to-be flowery friend what he deserved: A life, full of love and hope. They stood beside him, solemnly looking ahead at the cavern wall.

“Frisk… Don’t you have anything better to do?”

They did not.

“No.”

“Frisk, have I… said that to you before?” They gave a sad nod. “Oh. Uhm… How many times?” They gave a defeated shrug and frowned. “Frisk… They’re waiting for you. Your friends. Mom… Dad…” The young goat child was on the brink of tears, only makingFrisk wish they could just scoop him up and carry him out of the underground even more, but… they knew how it was. Rings of Asriel’s fur had been visibly wet around his eyes when Frisk arrived, and his green and yellow striped jumper was covered in flower petals and grass stains. “Please, Frisk. I can’t stay here much longer. I don’t want to hurt anyone anymore, Frisk… especially not you. Frisk… It’s best if you just forget me, okay? That way, you won’t keep on coming back here…”

They stared down at the ground, whitewashed once again. They don’t know why they expected things to be different this time. Why was Asriel so reluctant to be saved? Surely _someone_ was knowledgeable enough to fix his soul conundrum.

 “Asriel, I…” Frisk’s voice was unsteady. No matter how many times they’d reset, no matter how often they’d undone everyone’s lives, and no matter how much they’d gotten used to the journey through the Underground, they’d simply never gotten over Asriel. In previous timelines where Frisk had gone to live with Toriel on the surface, they would often dream of Asriel in a bed across from them, the clean linen gently draped over him rising up and down in perfect harmony with his precious, soft snores. They would dart up from their bed and lunge over to the wall, only to realize that there was no such bed across from them, and with that, no such possibility that Asriel could be alive.

Frisk took some time to think about why they were here now. Why they always ended up here. Why they were down here and not up there, with Asriel. They had endured the frigidness of Snowdin, a flurry of femurs from Papyrus, treacherous waterlogged trudges through the luminescent marshes of Waterfall, ethereal javelins being launched at them from above and below, stifling heat roaring skyward from the oceans of magma in Hotland, relentless attacks of furious monsters in the Core, and, in one timeline they tried not to think about, an utter turmoil of tibias that always left them as a gory mess spattered across Asgore’s gorgeously tiled floor. Thankfully, that timeline ended up being ended before it got seriously out of hand; Frisk tried not to think about it so much. After all, it wasn’t their fault.

They dodged the penultimate, disinclined cleaves of Asgore’s mighty scythe before fighting – trying desperately to save - Asriel, the “Absolute God of Hyperdeath” (which admittedly, was the coolest thing they’d ever seen) throughout multitudinous timelines, and in spite of all their variations, major or minor, the timelines all converged to the same end: Asriel left entombed beneath Mt. Ebott forever. Despite all their failde attempts, Frisk never showed signs of giving up hope. They would just have to come back again and again, reset after reset until they found a way. They decided against that for now, choosing to stay in this timeline for a bit. Even though they’d gone to live on the surface with Toriel numerous times, Frisk enjoyed savouring the feeling of being genuinely loved, something they had never felt before. Something they wished Asriel could be able to feel. Frisk always wanted a friend their age. They always wanted a sibling. It didn’t help that Frisk had gotten to know Asriel quite well over the course of his resets, only making them more and more attached and willing to do whatever in order to bring him to the surface.

“I’ll come visit you, okay? …Promise you won’t try to kill me when I come back?” Frisk gave a weak smile.

“Huh…? Alright, Frisk. I promise. I could never hurt you… not after all this, at least.”

They looked the goat child in the eyes one last time, an idea formulating in their mind. Maybe, if they could create a soul for him…

But that was ridiculous, wasn’t it? They would have to try again later, undoing everyone’s hopes and dreams, going back on everything they’ve worked up to and start all over:  they would truly reset the timeline. But not now. They would look for another way until then. Frisk thought for a moment that surely those two sciency nerds, Alphys and Sans would be able to help them out.

“Goodbye, Asriel.”

“B-Bye, Frisk,” he sobbed helplessly. Frisk told him not to cry, that they would be right back.

They left the cavern, filled with determination.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Toriel’s old home was still as homely as when they had first fell down, despite being devoid of life. Even the plants strewn around the place had shrivelled up and died. Frisk sat comfortably in her huge reading chair, something she’d never let them do before, while nibbling on the chocolate bar in the fridge she’d always scold Frisk for going near. Although her home was totally empty, Frisk was far from alone.

Over the course of several resets, Chara’s bond with Frisk’s soul had become stronger and stronger and by now, it was almost as if their souls had combined as one. Chara could even take control of Frisk’s body if necessary.

Although handing over control wasn’t necessary this time, he begged Frisk to let him take partial control so he could be the one to eat the chocolate.

_Frisk, when are you going to give up on him? He has no soul. He’s not worth the effort._

“Don’t you miss him?” Frisk spoke through a mouthful of MTT-Brand chocolate.

_He got us both killed._

“He’s your brother.”

Chara let his thoughts recede to the furthest reaches of their shared consciousness, refusing to let Frisk use them pick him apart. They were really good at that, but he despised it. He wanted to be dark, intimidating, and mysterious the first few times around, but they always saw right through him so he gave in. He often thought about Asriel, but that was hard to do considering they were forced to go along on a ride with Frisk constantly trying over and over to save him.

Frisk didn’t resent having Chara with them all the time. Although he’s very troubled, he was often very helpful and would give Frisk information about things they were curious about.

“Why do you never ask to speak to him? I would let you if you did.”

_He’s not worth the time._

“Chara, why do you-“

_You don’t know him like I do. You know what will happen every time you come down here to see him. He doesn’t have a soul. He can’t get one. So why, Frisk, do you care so much about him? Why do you get so emotional around him?_

“I like him. He’s the kind of friend I wish I always had. I know he is, because I have all your memories now. And I’ve spoken with him so many times. I can’t give up on him, Chara. Not while there’s a possibility I can help him.” Frisk had a lot more to say than that, but was feeling really tired.

 _What do you mean, ‘possibility’? How many more tries is it going to take to make this ‘possibility’ happen? I’m tired of doing this, Frisk._ He snapped at Frisk, sounding almost offended. Deep down, Chara still loved their brother, but never admitted it. This “possibility” Frisk presented of him coming back felt… indescribable, despite how meaningless it was likely to be. Besides, Chara was fed up with going back for Asriel over and over.

“I thought of something when I was talking to him. I’ll ask him about it when I come back to visit if it’s possible.”

 _What is it this time?_  Frisk recognized that Chara had willingly zoned out back in the cavern.

“Monster souls are made up of love, hope, and compassion, and held together by determination. Maybe you could... make one?” They were surprised they never thought of this before. Their previous attempts included them trying to split their soul in half, giving them their entire soul, or attempting to drag them out of the underground and force Alphys to fix this mess.

Frisk yawned and stretched whilst smiling at the thought, burying themselves into the puffy cushions of the large reading chair. They hadn’t slept since all the way back at Snowdin, which was probably the worst sleep they had ever experienced.

_…I know you’re the type to never give up, but Frisk, that’s ridiculous._

“It’s worth a try.”

_Is it really?_

“I know you want to see him again.” Chara went silent. They closed their eyes and passed the point of no return.

 _Ugh, Frisk! We need to get going!_ They said something unintelligible before handing control over to Chara and falling asleep.

Chara sighed, hoping that he wouldn’t run into any of Frisk’s friends. Sleep was problematic between the two for this reason, especially for Chara. Whenever Chara came across one of Frisk’s friends, he’d have to make up some sort of excuse to get away from them. Thankfully he didn’t get to control Frisk’s body often, because the risk of their friends picking something up was quite high. Chara eagerly hopped off of the dusty chair and headed down to the basement, and out the large door Toriel always said she would destroy but never did.

 

* * *

 

 

Chara stepped through the huge, violet door they had come in through, not bothering to shut it behind him. Chara wasn’t particularly concerned about letting the cold in the Ruins, not caring about the spiders that still chose to make it their home or the sentimentality that Frisk always showed that made Chara frustrated, because they were always talking to people or looking at things when really they should be moving forward. He enjoyed being in control. He paced down the frosted path, careful not to slip or get too much snow in Frisk’s boots. The huge trees on either side of it were rather intimidating. The light filtered through them so it was hard to see deep in between their thin trunks. It would be the perfect place to spy or sneak up on someone from.

“heya, kiddo.”

He snapped around immediately, recognizing that voice. Nonchalant, flat, perhaps even jolly, but murderous and chilling if need be.

 _“Not him! I can’t fight him now, I have no LOVE! Frisk, where are the knives?!”_ He would have attempted to shake Frisk awake if it were possible, but settled down almost immediately once he thought that the portly skeleton should be totally unaware he existed. Sans wasn’t much taller than Frisk, but quite a great deal wider.

“yeah, uhh… the others were getting a little worried, you were taking a while, so they sent me out to look for you. guess you were just heading back now, huh?”

“Uhh… Yeah.” Chara absolutely loathed Sans. Whenever he saw him, he always thought back to when he was being reduced to a pathetic pile of bones and soul fragments.  Chara hoped he wouldn’t be in for a bad time if Sans were to figure out it wasn’t Frisk he was talking to. He didn’t stand a chance against him with no LOVE, although he wouldn’t hesitate to kill him if he did. The two continued walking down the icy path in silence for a bit.

“so, what’s up, bucko? you seem a little out of it.” Despite his monotonous voice, serious lack of facial expression, and monumental laziness, Sans was incredibly observant. He noticed something strange going on with the child almost instantly, and beyond that, always seemed to feel uncomfortable whenever Chara was in control. Frisk was a rather strange kid anyway; Sans knew that they would get upset easily if he said the wrong thing. Back near the Core at the Hotel, they jokingly said that Frisk would be “dead where they stand” had they not agreed to Toriel’s promise, almost causing the kid to reset out of horror.

“Don’t worry. I’m… fine?” Chara tried to put on his best Frisk impression, something he’d been trying to perfect over time for various reasons, but came off a little cold and hesitant when he said that. Sans would have raised an eyebrow if he had any, so he elected to shrug at Chara with raised palms instead.

_Frisk, can you wake up now? You know how much I hate this asshole. He’s giving me the creeps._

“so, buddy, what were you doing all the way back in the ruins? ‘s a pretty long walk.”

“Talking to a friend.”

“cool. what’s their name?” Chara sorted through an array of expressions, trying to find the right one. If he found the right one or said the correct thing, maybe Sans would be satisfied and go away.

Once again, Sans backed out of the question as he feared he’d just said something that might’ve upset Frisk. Regardless of his concern about hurting the kid’s feelings, he didn’t brush aside his feeling that something was wrong with them. “uh, forget I said anything then, pal.” Chara looked confused by this, oblivious to the fact that he had just appeared to have experienced several drastically varying emotions in the space of a few moments. The skeleton paid closer attention to them. He noticed several disparities in their movements, their smile, and their voice. Chara walked a lot less clumsily than Frisk, who loved hopping around and skipping over cracks and branches, and spoke a lot more confidently.

“so did you get the ending you were going for this time?” Sans began asking some different questions, ones that only Frisk could answer.

“What?”

“the resets. are they gonna stop now?”

“I, uh…”

Sans stopped dead in his tracks in front of the bridge where they first met him, and Chara followed suit. He clenched his fists, letting off a couple cracks, and sighed. Chara hoped he was going to make a dreadful pun about Papyrus’s half-assed gate. He squinted at Chara for a bit, before appearing to make some sort of realization.

“hmm… alright, what’s going on? earth to frisk?”

“What?” Sans had noticed something off about how Frisk was behaving as soon as he spotted them. While he was adept at reading peoples’ expressions and listening to the tones of their voices, he was also simultaneously pretty good at finding the right things to say to break people down.

“why are you acting so strangely?”

 _“Frisk, I can’t keep up this act anymore. Wake up, or he’s going to find out and you’re gonna have to explain all of it!”_ Chara was trying to force himself out of Frisk’s body to get away from Sans, but if he did that then Frisk would simply collapse on the spot as they were still asleep.

“hmm…” Sans stared at Chara for what seemed to be at least 10 minutes as if he were sizing him up for a fight. His white-dot pupils bored through Chara’s unfaltering stare. Sans took a look at his soul for a brief moment and noticed it was a much darker shade of red. “yeah, okay. alright, i can sense some super creepy stuff going on in that weird-looking soul of yours. so that leads me to the conclusion that there must be something else in that body of frisk’s. what are you, and why are you inside of frisk?”

“I’m…” Had Frisk not been around and had it not been someone who was responsible for his death numerous times he was speaking to, Chara would have said something along the lines of “your worst nightmare”.

“My name is Chara,” he said in the most psychopathic-child-like voice he could muster instead, hoping Sans would remember that name from a previous timeline somehow and back off. Unfortunately, Sans did not appear to remember that name, nor did Chara sound very intimidating when he said it. Frisk’s voice was too child-like.

“okay.” Chara scoffed. _If this big-boned idiot remembered who I truly was, he’d be terrified,_ he thought to himself.

“i’ll repeat myself. what are you, and why are you inside of frisk?” Chara felt offended by the former question.

“I’m a human.” The skeleton did not look convinced. “I’ve been here in Frisk’s body for a long time. I’m not hurting them. Frisk is… sleeping right now.” Much to Chara’s dismay, the skeleton _really_ did not seem convinced by “sleeping”.

“sleeping? W h a t  d i d  y o u  d o?” His voice acquired an ominous resonance as his pupils blacked out. It wasn’t as daunting as his flashing orange and blue eye that usually meant he was about to die, but it was unsettling nonetheless.

“They fell asleep earlier. I’m in control of their body at the moment. May we talk about this later?” Chara gave a mocking smile.

Sans looked contemplative for a moment as his pupils faded back in. “hmm... alright then. but i’m keeping my eye socket on ya. by the way, the others are still worried about frisk. i’d get back to them fast if i were you.” Sans suddenly adopted a more serious tone and began making his way to one of his signature shortcut zones behind one of the tall, thin tree trunks. “also, i have a _lot_ of questions for you later. you, not frisk.”

“Um… okay.”

“i’ll meet you back at the barrier.”

“Bye?”

In the blink of an eye, Sans disappeared. Neither Frisk nor Chara were ever able to figure out how he did that. Chara passed through the gate and through the rest of Snowdin rather unperturbed, alone with their thoughts.

“God, I hate that guy.” Surreptitiously, he hoped no one heard that.


	3. Chapter 3

Chara had made it all the way to Hotland before Frisk decided to wake up. Considering Frisk had actually never fallen asleep during this timeline before now, he was surprised and  glad they had woken up at all. He dreaded to think what he would do if Frisk didn’t wake up before he ended up meeting all of their friends. Following his encounter with Sans, he was reserved & quiet for the entirety of his journey,

Chara did have a lot on his mind regarding Asriel. He wondered why Frisk was so determined to help him but it only made him realize that he truly did miss his brother.

“ _Best friends forever,”_   he laughed at the thought.

That could’ve been reality, had he not torn their friendship apart with that stupid plan that cost him and his beloved sibling their family. Despite Chara constantly pretending to not care about Asriel through all of Frisk’s loops, deep down inside of him, he knew that what happened on the surface that horrible night left a hole in his heart he’d never be able to fill. Him pretending not to care was just a way to cope.

Despite the fundamental differences Frisk and Chara had when they first met, the two had gotten along quite nicely. Chara even said before that he “appreciates Frisk’s company”, which made Frisk feel absolutely delighted. Expressing such a feeling was a major rite of passage for someone like him. Despite tempering up significantly however, Chara still often had thoughts that outright terrified Frisk, from murder to suicide. Frisk did their best to comfort him – usually resulting in Frisk talking to themselves while curled up in a ball on the floor - they knew it was a result of some sort of episode or outburst and that all Chara needed was to be told that he can still be a good person if he just tried. Frisk was the only one who could possibly help Chara. They didn’t know exactly why, but Chara was very unstable. He didn’t like speaking to people other than Frisk, as they were the only the only person he trusted; he’d often have some form of panic attack or outburst during conversations with other people.

“Oh, you’re awake. Here you go,” he handed control of the shared body to Frisk immediately and without warning, causing them to let out a jolt upright and stumble around awkwardly. Luckily, they were currently in an elevator and not inches away from falling off a cliff into a pool of magma.

“Ugh…. Chara…” Frisk groaned, still half asleep.

 _Sorry. It was a long walk. I’m pretty tired now, too._ The elevator door slid open and Frisk was rather perplexed upon realizing how far they had come from Toriel’s reading chair.

“What? We’re in Hotland already? How long was I asleep for?”

_A while. Frisk, I met your skeleton friend back there. I don’t think he likes me._

“What?” They were still not fully awake and did not quite understand.

 _You fell asleep, correct?_ Frisk nodded. _“After you fell asleep, I exited the ruins and that skeleton appeared out of nowhere. He found out it wasn’t you he was speaking to. I’m pretty sure he came very close to killing me._

“What did he say?”

_Nothing important. He did ask you if you got your ‘happy ending’ and if the resets were going to stop. Of course, I couldn’t answer that. He also said he has a lot of questions for me later._

Frisk pouted at that, stepping onto one of those oddly-placed ventilation shafts as they were launched through the air onto a distant platform, squealing like they were on a rollercoaster.

_Aren’t you concerned about that? He knows I’m here!_

“No, he won’t hurt you.” He shuddered. “Besides, he won’t tell anyone.” Frisk stepped onto another steam-puffing metal grate and went soaring through the sweltering air.

 _Surely it would have been easier to build bridges across these walkways than these??_ Frisk giggled, sensing a considerable amount of distress.

“You’re not feeling scared, are you?” They snickered.

 _No._ Frisk couldn’t help but giggle again. _So, Frisk, about your idea…_

“Yeah?”

_How do you plan to make a soul out of nothing?_

Frisk thought for a moment. “Hmm… I know! Alphys knows more about souls than anyone, maybe she could help.”

_You’d have to convince her to do it. And tell her why you need it._

“I’m sure she’ll do it. It’ll help her feel better about the determination experiments if she does something good,” Frisk said hopefully as they walked past the two Royal Guardsmen and the Nice Cream vendor, greeting them before they stepped into the MTT Resort noticing that the statue in the middle was still spraying water all over the floor.

_Hm. Frisk, do you know about this statue here?_

“Not really. Why?”

_Asriel’s memorial used to be there; the statue at Waterfall. Mettaton moved it out and replaced it with… this._

“What? He just… took it out?”

_Yep. Shocking, isn’t it? If he was here, I’d rip his wires out and then choke him with them. I wonder if he needs to breathe. If not, I could tie him down with them and stomp on his head until he begs-_

“Chara, relax!” Frisk felt a familiar feeling inside of Chara; the feeling they always felt when he wanted to kill someone. It scared them a lot.

_…_

They wanted to change the subject by asking Chara what Asriel was like as a brother, but they both had things they weren’t comfortable letting each other pry into, and understandably so as both of their thoughts were basically constantly broadcasted to each other. Chara always said  _"Why do you care?_ " whenever they asked anyway.

 

* * *

 

 

Frisk stepped into New Home. Here, Chara had made their only happy memories, however few in number they were. Although they came here earlier, their visit was only brief because they had been through this place over a triple-digit number of times. Walking through the former home of two dead – now reincarnated in different forms – children and a broken marriage was no longer so saddening after all these loops. They walked down the hallway and looked at their reflection in the mirror to confirm that it was still them, but felt Chara tugging at them in their head.

 _“Frisk, may I…”_ They quickly identified what Chara was asking for and contentedly handed it over. They had skipped over this room when they came through the past few dozen loops, much to Chara’s regret, because they had already seen everything in there, and Frisk wasn’t aware of its value to Chara until recently. In fact, they hadn’t even gone in here since the second time around where Chara went on his murder spree. Frisk kind of felt bad for doing so now that they looked back on it.

He slowly opened the door and Frisk felt Chara’s emotions roll over them. Nostalgia, angst, sadness, but most noticeable of all, was grief. The grief was immense, even overwhelming. Being this emotive was very unlike him; the only emotions Chara felt strongly enough for Frisk to also feel were sadness and anger.

Chara crouched down and delicately opened the pleasantly wrapped present on the old, grey floorboards. He felt something funny inside his throat. Inside the present was a beautiful ruby heart locket worn upon an elegant golden chain. He slowly picked it up and carefully flipped open the locket. Inside of it was a picture of Chara and Asriel hugging each other, laughing and making silly faces for the camera. It had the words engraved on it, “Best Friends Forever!” Chara’s chest tensed up. Although it hadn’t been worn much, which was visible due to how pristine it looked, it was very meaningful to Chara. It was a symbol of Chara and Asriel’s foregone friendship, the one Chara destroyed with his terrible plan. Chara felt something, an intense feeling of grief and mourning wash over them before Chara did something they’d never anticipated him to do. Ever.

“Asriel…”

A single tear rolled down their cheek. Then, another tear down the other cheek. Another teardrop rolled off of an eyelash and splashed onto the locket.

“ _Chara…”_ Before Frisk could say anything more, Chara burst into tears. He _screamed_. Chara never cried. He didn’t even cry when he fell down the hole at Mt. Ebott. He never showed _any_ emotion like this whatsoever in all the time he had been with Frisk. And now he was _howling_ with tears. Their souls ached so badly it felt like they would shatter at any moment.

“I miss you! I miss you, I miss you, I miss you!” He pressed the locket up to his chest so hard it hurt, he cried into every square inch of the room, he buckled to the floor and wailed into the cold wood, clutching the locket tightly in his palm and letting it warm up against his chest.

The words were breaking apart in his throat, coming out masked under heaving sobs. “I shouldn’t have made you do it! I shouldn’t have tried to be a hero! I’m so sorry, Azzy!” They bawled into Frisk’s sleeve, drenching it in genuine, heartbroken tears. “It’s all my fault! I’m sorry!”

He lay like that on the floor for about ten minutes, sobbing into their sleeve and tightening their grip on the locket, occasionally muttering the words, “I’m sorry.” The whole time, Frisk was silent.

Frisk thought about Chara and Asriel. How close they were, how Chara only wanted the best for his family when he went through with the plan, how Asriel died trying to save the lives of all of those humans, the statue at Waterfall, how Asriel always insisted that “someone has to take care of these flowers”, how Asriel projected Chara onto Frisk when they fought and how he cried so heavily at his mention even in his godlike form, and the tapes they saw at the true lab. Only then did they fully realize how tragic the tale of the two brothers was. They had been separated for so long. At this point, Frisk was crying too.

Once Chara had calmed down, he sniffled and rubbed his eyes, looking at the locket again. “Mom… Toriel made this for us a month after I fell down, after seeing how well Asriel and I got along with each other.” Chara shared memories with Frisk of him and Asriel baking butterscotch-cinnamon pie together with Toriel and putting in far too much sugar, staying up late talking to each other after having nightmares, and chasing each other down the hallway. He stopped before he would start crying again. A few more moments passed. Chara stared at the locket for a while and smiled.

“I’m sorry.” He let Frisk step back into their body.

“Are you okay?”

 _I think so._ Frisk stood up, saddened by how wet their sleeve was. If Chara had his own body, they’d hug it _so_ hard right now. Frisk decided to put the heart locket in their pocket. It was obviously very special to Chara. They took the other one too, assuming it belonged to Asriel. They’d need it for when they came back.

“I promise you’ll get to see him again.” Frisk wanted to hug Chara so badly. They could still feel him grieving. Frisk sat down on one of the beds for a while, giving Chara some surplus time to feel better. A few minutes passed.

 _Do you think I am a bad person?_ Frisk was taken aback by this.

“Of course not!” Frisk shouted into thin air. “Chara, why would you-“

_Asriel said to you a few times that… I wasn’t the greatest person. He’s right, isn’t he?_

“I…” Frisk felt legitimately sad upon hearing that. They knew that’s not how Asriel really felt. “He’d be so proud and happy if he saw you now. He really loves you.”

_He’s still right. It’s because of my stupid plan. I tore apart our family. The only happiness I ever had._

“Don’t you remember all the times we fought him? How he said he would use the power of the souls to reset everything just to have you back again, and how he said he kept fighting to keep you around because he cared about you?” Frisk smiled. “Even though you made a mistake, you only wanted the best for them. I’m sure he’ll be glad to see you again.”

 “I knew you missed him.” Frisk smirked, noting that Chara was feeling better now.

_Of course I do…. Frisk, I just want you to know that…_

Frisk smiled. They liked it when Chara opened up about their feelings.

_I’m happy to be with you. Sometimes, I don’t know what I’d do without you. I’d probably have… ended my own life by now._

“I’m happy to be with you too, Chara.” Frisk blushed slightly and stepped into the main room of New Home, down the stairs and towards the throne room. They tried to ignore the last part.

_And, I hope… I hope your idea works. And… if it doesn’t, I know you’ll never give up on him. I hope I get to see him again._

“I know you miss him, Chara. And I want to help him, and you, too. I’ll do whatever it takes. I promise you’ll see him again.” Frisk had a huge grin across their face. Getting Chara to express how they felt was so gratifying to them as it was to him, and they could both feel each other’s delight at it.

Chara had now become relatively quiet and shuffled as far to the back of Frisk’s mind as he could so he could think by himself for a bit. Frisk took some time to think, too. They thought about their idea more. Alphys probably knew more about SOULs than anyone else on earth, surely she could do _something._ Although, this would mean Frisk would have to tell her about everything: the resets, the true identity of Flowey, and there wasn’t even any certainty that she’d actually do it, If they brought Asriel to the surface, they thought, they’d also have to explain all of that to the others.

_It’ll be okay._

Rather than lightly scolding Chara for intruding their thoughts, Frisk nodded and entered Asgore’s corridor. They’d go to the surface, and once everyone had settled down, they’d ask Alphys and Sans about their idea.


	4. Chapter 4

It was as beautiful as the past one hundred or so times they had seen it. The sun bobbed below the horizon, waiting to either sink or rise up. Royal purple and gold bands streaked across the outlandish heavens the world was blanketed under, as if to celebrate the arrival of the monster King and – former - Queen.  Frisk’s fellow monster folk didn’t know much about the sun, so they relied on them for what little information a young child was able to offer. They could not tell them if it was a sunset or a sunrise unless they watched it for at least a few more minutes, but the monsters didn’t wait around for that as were more important things that needed to be done. Undyne would need to pulverize some humans if they didn’t like their arrival, Asgore and Toriel would need to learn all about human politics, Alphys and Sans would have a whole new world of scientific toys to play with, and Papyrus was eager to learn how to drive.

“Alright, that’s enough gawkin’ ya sissies. There’s work to be done!” Undyne materialized her brilliantly-polished suit of armour which weighed in excess of two hundred pounds, as well as one of her signature light blue spears and raced down the mountainside. “Better let these human punks know we’re here!” Alphys quickly followed her out of admiration.

“Now, now, Undyne! The humans might not react so well to… Oh dear.” Undyne was already charging down the path, screaming with her spear pointed forward. “I’d better go with her, too.” Asgore was surprisingly quick for his size, and hurried down the grassy slope after Undyne.

“WORRY NOT, YOUR MAJESTY! THE GREAT PAPRYUS SHALL AID YOU THROUGH THE EXTREME AND OFTEN PAINFUL HARDSHIPS OF ATTEMPTING TO CALM DOWN UNDYNE!” The tall, goofy, skeletal spaghettore proclaimed to Asgore before he joined the relay of dashing monsters.

“Oh dear. I must follow them and make sure they do not cause any trouble. Asgore, the miserable whelp, might do something… Unfavourable.” Toriel frowned, but smiled again upon looking at Frisk. “Goodbye, my child. I shall see you soon. We will meet at the base of the mountain. Sans, may you accompany them for now?”

“sure thing, your majesty. i still remember your promise.” Sans winked, and Toriel smiled gratefully at the skeleton before rushing off down to the base of the mountain, leaving Sans and Frisk alone on the cliff to admire the sunset.

 _That’s different,_ Frisk thought. _Usually Sans is one of the first to run off. They didn’t even ask me if I would like to be the monster-human ambassador!_

“it’s nice, isn’t it?” Frisk nodded in agreement. They had almost forgotten what it was like to admire a sunset.

 A feeling of dread seemed to hang over Chara, who was oddly silent.

“beats looking up at ‘em lousy crystals back in waterfall by a long shot. i should’ve brought that premium telescope with me.” Frisk chuckled; remembering the prank Sans had pulled on them with the telescope back in Waterfall.

Sans cracked a few of his joints to relieve some tension in them and let out a long sigh. Unfortunately, it didn’t relieve any of the tension between him and Chara.

“so, frisk. it’s you there, right?” Sans already knew the answer. Frisk looked confused before remembering what Chara had told them about Sans and nodding slowly. “can i, uhh… speak to your friend?”

Sans sensed something weird inside of Frisk as they swapped over. It strangely felt to him like some sort of magical disturbance whenever it happened, even though humans could not use magic.

“Hello.” Frisk was nudging at Chara to not try and be so intimidating.

_Stop that!_

“so you’re frisk’s buddy. mind telling me a bit more about yourself?”

_Tell him everything._

“I am – was -  Toriel and Asgore’s… adoptive son.” Sans looked slightly concerned. Now he definitely wouldn’t be able to get rid of the kid. “I was the first human to fall into the underground. The prince and I died trying to free monster kind.” Chara choked up slightly, but he steeled himself and moved on. He wouldn’t break down in front of Sans. “After Asgore declared that all humans that fall down here must die, the queen took my body from his castle and buried it… beneath a bed of golden flowers… in the Ruins. When Frisk fell onto those flowers for the first time, their determination allowed me to awaken from death, and my soul bound with theirs.”

Sans’ expression didn’t change. “that explains where you come from. but i know you. you’re a murderer. an anomaly. a demon inside of frisk.” Frisk and Chara felt a little mortified. “you’ve killed everyone before. and you’re in frisk’s body with the power to control it.” Frisk wrestled control from Chara to interject.

“Chara is NOT a demon! He hasn’t done anything wrong in forever! Please don’t talk about him like that, Sans.” Chara blushed at Frisk’s defence, and received control of their body again. Sans looked surprised.

“well, alright then. i still don’t trust you, chara.”

“I understand. Is that all?”

Sans was surprised by the child’s reaction. “no. now that I know you’re definitely there, I wanna ask you about the resets. they’re your fault, aren’t they? you’re hurting frisk in that mind of yours, aren’t you?”

“No, I’m afraid if you want more information on that…” Chara felt sad again. The resets were happening because of Asriel. They couldn’t explain that without crying. “You will have to ask Frisk.” Frisk understood and agreed to explain the resets to Sans, who felt another strange magical disruption as they switched over.

“huh. alright, kid, what’s the deal with the resets? why don’t you just let time move on and do its own thing?”

Frisk took a deep breath and explained everything, from how terrified they were the first time they fell down and how Chara insisted they murder everything which was the result of yet another reset, to how Chara and them began getting along, to how they finally freed everyone but were left unsatisfied by never being able to save Asriel, and how he was the sole cause of almost all of their resets and they just wanted a happy ending for everyone. Frisk then said that this would be the time they saved him and the resets would stop, earning him an expression from Sans that read, “Sure, whatever.”

Sans was fascinated, almost jealous of how much control this kid was able to exert over the timelines. He also knew how this kid would stop at nothing to save his friends, and that Asriel would be no exception.

He knew of what happened that fateful night with Chara and the prince, through stories and through Toriel herself sharing with him through the door at the ruins. Honestly, Sans found the story really sad.

“kid, the prince has been dead for a long time. very long time. how do you even know about him?” Sans was confused.

Frisk realized they had forgotten to mention Flowey. They went over the determination experiments with Sans, who was vaguely familiar with them, and told him that Asriel was reincarnated as the talking flower they were both familiar with, but he lacked his ability to love others while making sure to insist that Asriel and Flowey were not the same person.

Sans ignored the sob story. Talking flower? Has Frisk gone mad?

“flower? kid, you are NOT  bringing that flower up here. do you know what that thing has done? it will kill us all, frisk. now i don’t know what kind of shit that psycho in your head has been talking to you, but prince or not, that flowery fucker-“

Chara suddenly became furious with the skeleton, and swiped control of Frisk’s mouth. How dare this corpulent pile of bones badmouth him AND his brother?

“That flower is DEAD. We are NOT saving the flower. We are saving _my brother_. I am NOT a psychopath. Do you understand?” Frisk didn’t disagree with this, but felt uncomfortable as Chara seemed genuinely angry.

_Chara, calm down…_

 “I cut his life short. He never did anything wrong in his life, or in death as a flower, because that WASN’T HIM. He deserves to be saved more than ANYONE.” Frisk was urging Chara to calm down, but nothing happened. They were being ignored. “And you did _not_ just call my brother a flowery fucker.” Sans had no idea how to react to that.

Chara was seething with rage, assimilating full control from Frisk and shoving them and their pleas for mercy into the far reaches of their mind. Frisk wouldn’t stop them from delivering justice to this miserable slacker.

He clenched his fists hard enough to draw blood from his palms, and tightened his jaw so hard one of their teeth cracked a little. He felt like he could just destroy that skeleton right here and now; reduce them to dust. And so, he would.

Frisk struggled against Chara, desperately trying to gain control and prevent what was about to happen, but Chara’s homicidal cathexis was overwhelming. All they could do was hold on and hope Sans wouldn’t do anything extreme.

The sun sank below the horizon. The stars emerged from behind its rays. The wind was howling.

Chara exhaled slowly and unsteadily, then began lunging at Sans with all their might. Bones held together by magic were much easier to break than human ones, which Chara understood fully, feeling he could easily shatter Sans’s skull. He’d broken people’s noses, jaws, and arms before; Sans’s skull should be a piece of cake. One hard, downward blow to the cranium and it’d all be over for that miserable, lazy slob. Chara raised their fist and prepared to strike down as hard as he could. He hopped off his right foot and charged.

Sans flicked up a phalanx before Chara could even take two steps, and he was overcome by blue magic. An arctic haze engulfed the enraged child; it felt like some sort of ice magic which chilled them to the core. It became increasingly difficult to move towards Sans, but he was too determined to stop. Chara lumbered through the glacial fog that Sans had tried to ensnare them in, each step requiring exponentially more effort than the last, and out the other side. Sans’s permanent grin dropped slightly.

Chara dove at the skeleton once more, this time looking to grab onto one of his ribs and rip it out once he rationalized that a downward strike would not be effective, as it could be simply sidestepped. What he would do with the rib was up to them. Chara considered beating him across the skull with it, but that would take a long time to finish. He settled upon thrusting the rib into his eye socket. Chara swung at the skeleton first to daze him, and then he’d have his way with them.

Sans blinked out of existence while the haymaker passed by him, and reappeared to the side of it as Chara looked up at him with a fury that he hoped that no other child should be able to possess. Panicked, he focused an intense concentration of magic, gripping the child as hard as he could with his hand still raised at them as he forcefully compressed a cloud of blue magic around his body so hard that they would not even be able to move their fingertips inside of it. He pivoted his arm around, the other still resting in his jacket pocket, and dangled the helpless youngster over the edge of the cliff as his eye rapidly flickered between different shades of blue, yellow, and orange. He was sweating from not only an excessive use of magic, but from his innate fear of Chara. He was reminded of killing him numerous times in Asgore’s corridor. _this kid is still a goddamn psycho. this is gonna be a problem._

Chara struggled amidst the heavily condensed vapour, but he couldn’t move his body. He struggled again. Nothing happened. He was still thrashing and hyperventilating.

“I’ll KILL you,” he hissed at the skeleton. “I’ll rip your bones free from their joints. I’ll pull all of your teeth out, one by one! I’ll plunge knife after knife between your ribs! DO YOU HEAR ME!?” He roared. He opened his eyes wide and gazed wickedly at the skeleton, thrashing viciously inside of their cloudy prison.

Slowly, Chara’s violent thrashing ceased as he lost energy. Sans stood perfectly still, watching him closely for any signs of Frisk regaining control. _must’ve fully kicked them out. this kid has problems,_ he thought. “having fun?” Sans said calmly.

About a minute passed, and he had finally settled down. Sans just stared at him pitifully for the full duration of the episode. Chara was exhausted.

He looked up at Sans, who was staring at them with the most worried expression. He recognized he was hanging over the edge of a cliff, suspended by blue magic. Comprehending what he had just done, he began thrashing around once more in a shameful panic.

 _“Oh no. I fucked up, didn’t I? Oh no. I’m so sorry, Frisk. I…”_ Chara was absolutely mortified as he realized what he had just tried to do. “ _I just… tried to kill someone… and… I stole your body to do it…”_ He thought he could never do anything like this again. He promised he wouldn’t. He was scared. _They’ll never forgive me_ , he thought.

Chara surrendered control to Frisk, who jolted stiff and gasped in shock, then rushed into the dark patches of their consciousness so he wouldn’t have to contend with them about what he had done.

“You can let go now.”

The grip on Frisk softened and Sans lowered them back onto solid ground.

“he gone?”

“Yeah. He… ran off.” Frisk realized that didn’t exactly make sense as Sans raised an eyebrow somehow.

“where?”

“Nowhere, but I can’t speak to him or hear him.”

“oh.” Sans still didn’t quite get how the whole body sharing thing worked between them. He was intrigued by the idea of two souls inhabiting one body, and would have run experiments on it with Alphys while he had the chance had he not been so lazy.

“well, that kid has some serious issues. how do you stand having him around all the time?” Sans didn’t understand Chara. Frisk was sure he would understand if he told them about what they’d been through together and what Chara’s life was like before Frisk.

“He’s really nice now. He just had… a rough past.” Sans smiled awkwardly and scratched the back of his skull. “Sometimes, when people say the wrong things, he gets really mad.” Frisk shot Sans a disapproving glare.

“yeah, tell him i’m sorry.” Sans didn’t mean it. He’d have a hard time beginning to trust Chara.

Frisk smiled, but still couldn’t feel Chara anywhere. The two stood in silence for a bit, looking skyward. The sun had fully set by now, and the stars were shining brightly.

“welp, we better get going. your mother’s probably waiting down there.”

“ _My_ mother?” Frisk definitely did think of Toriel as a mother, but Sans shouldn’t know about that. The two began strolling down the path to the base of the mountain, betwixt two thickets of pine trees either side of it.

“well, yeah. you’re staying with her, aren’t you?”

“How did you know?”

“you always do.”

“Oh, I forgot. You remember stuff.” Frisk poked their tongue out at Sans.

“some stuff.”

Frisk tried getting a response from Chara. _Are you there?_ Nothing.

 _Please talk to me. It’s okay._ Nothing. Chara definitely wasn’t asleep, Frisk could tell.

“so, you wanna save the prince, huh?” Frisk nodded. “well, you’ll need a soul i’m pretty sure. where are you gonna get one of those from?” Frisk wondered for a moment if they should tell them about their idea, shuddering at the possibility of being rejected or being told it’s not possible. “heh, you’ll find something, won’t ya?” They nodded again.

They were about halfway down the path now. The trees along either side reminded them of where they first met Sans. It was very dark between the shorter, thicker tree trunks but the path was illuminated by moon and starlight just enough for them to see ahead.

“what’s it like with him around? chara, i mean.”

“I already told you, he’s nice, and-“

“let me rephrase that. what’s it like sharing a body and a mind with someone all the time?”

“Oh. At first, it was really scary and sometimes annoying, but when we got to know each other and became friends we ended up helping each other out a lot. Chara would run from stuff and I would solve puzzles and talk to people.”

“figures. you’d befriend anyone.” Sans’s eternal grin seemed to grow larger.

“It’s not like I had a choice in being friends with him.”

“true. frisk, he doesn’t seem very… stable. how do you know he won’t try that again, on someone who’s powerless to stop him? heck, imagine what undyne would do to him.” Frisk winced, remembering how powerful Undyne really was. Frisk had thought about Sans’s query often in the past, but always brushed it off because they trusted Chara to never do something like that.

“I… I don’t know, Sans. He hasn’t done that in a long time. I felt like I was trapped. I couldn’t even move or call out to him to stop. Usually I can help him, but…”

“he seems like a hazard. i really don’t want you getting hurt or him hurting anyone else. how are you gonna stop him if he does that again?”

“I think… I might need your help. Can you… If he does it again, can you do something? Like, hold him in the air or something until he calms down?”

“hmm… alright. that seems like a skele-ton of effort. but, y’know, since he might go on an unimpeded massacre or get you killed if i don’t stop him… i guess i can make an exception.” He spoke with a sarcastically hesitant tone. Frisk thanked Sans, ignoring the dreadful pun and misrepresentation of Chara that snuck its way in there, and gave him a bright smile. If Frisk couldn’t stop Chara when things like that happened, Sans would be the only other one that could without killing them.

The two reached the end of the path, which opened up into a huge clearing. There was a small flame in the middle of it.

“ah, there’s toriel over there. better go find a place for you guys to stay, huh? you must be exhausted,” he said with his permanent grin expanding slightly. Sans disappeared. Frisk hated when he departed with vague, cryptic statements.

“Ah! There you are, my child. Where is Sans?”

“He said something about finding us a place to stay, then disappeared.” Toriel wore a perplexed expression, which was amplified as Sans suddenly appeared out of nowhere as quickly as he had left.

“found you guys a new home. right this way.” Sans gestured towards thin air for Frisk and Toriel to use one of his “shortcuts”. Frisk excitedly hopped in; they loved taking Sans’s shortcuts, but Toriel was hesitant.

“Sans, what on earth-“

“just get in. i’ll explain later.” Toriel reluctantly stepped into the invisible rift in time and was speechless as she appeared inside of a pleasant, unperturbed home followed by Sans.

“nice, isn’t it?”

“Sans, how did you…”

“turns out there’s a small town on the other side of this mountain that’s totally abandoned. convenient, huh?” Toriel was still in shock. She looked over to Frisk, who was standing in a bedroom doorway with their head tilted and shoulders raised, as if to say “just accept it.”

“W-Where are the others?”

“alphy n’ undyne are across the road. asgore’s next door, and pap n’ I were gonna stay here with the kid and you. pap’s in that room, i’ll be there, frisk’ll be there, and you can have that one.” Sans pointed around at all the doors. Toriel had a shocked expression on her face as she looked around the room. They were standing atop a wooden staircase lined with an intricate mocha banister on the side. There were four doors on the second floor, one open with Frisk inside, and the other three closed. Downstairs was a huge couch across from a large television as well as a kitchen. The layout was strikingly similar to Sans and Papyrus’s house.

“i know, it’s kinda a sudden shock, but…”

“Sudden shock does not even begin to describe this, Sans. How on earth is this possible? How did you get us and the others here so quickly? Are you sure this place is empty? The humans don’t even know we’re here!”

“i’ll explain in the morning. you should get some shut-eye socket.” Toriel attempted to stifle a laugh.

“I’m not sure if that will be easy after what I have just experienced… but you are right.”

Sans and Toriel exchanged a few words, and Frisk turned around and slumped on top the immaculately-made bed’s blankets, noticing another similar bed across from it.

_…Chara?_

_Are you there?_

_I’m not mad at you._

No response.

They were out cold instantly. Soon after, Toriel entered and tucked them in with a kiss goodnight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That town was convenient, huh?  
> I'm sorry; the logistics of housing weren't something I was interested in delving into.   
> I assure you it's not for no reason though.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pretty big self-harm warning in this chapter. I structured it so you'd be able to skip it without missing out on too much if need be, which is why it's so short.

_…_

Frisk was fast asleep, face buried in the lovely lavender pillow with their mouth agape as it let a light stream of drool ooze down the cover.

Chara was ashamed; ashamed that he still had the potential for grievous assault inside of him. He was still a monster. A demon that came when its name was called; and he always would be because he simply couldn’t control himself and had to rely on them so much. Frisk would soon come to hate him. He wouldn’t help him anymore. _He’ll look for a way to get me out of here. He’ll never trust me again._ Chara felt that same emptiness inside of him as he felt when he ran up the mountain.

 _God, where are the knives?!_ Chara assailed control from Frisk once more, much easier to do when they were asleep, shambled about their new home, which would probably end up being called “New New Home”, and headed down to the kitchen.

_I’m a monster. I don’t deserve your friends, Frisk. I don’t deserve to see my brother again._

Chara entered the kitchen and carefully, quietly drew open all of the drawers in search of something, anything sharp. He found a small kitchen knife, and took it back upstairs, clutching the handle tightly.

_I’m nothing but a disease on your soul. I’m sorry I annoyed you for so long._

Chara trundled back into their room, carefully closing the door behind them so the others wouldn’t hear. He treaded into their bathroom, and stared at them self in the mirror, pitying his own reflection.

_Look at me. I’ve ruined you. I am just an unstable, dangerous wreck of a human being._

He rolled up his left sleeve, raised his arm, and rested it upon the sink.

He elevated the knife, and relaxed the point of the blade upon his delicate skin.

_Goodbye, Frisk. I’m sorry for being such a pain._

He applied more and more pressure to the blade until he felt the satisfying yet dreadful pop of the skin as it broke and receded around the edge. Dragging the end across his wrist, he smiled knowing that he was liberating Frisk from the torture of having to deal with his nonsense.

Blood oozed from the carnage the knife had left in its wake. It whirled down the rim of the basin and spiralled down the drain.

* * *

 

Frisk slowly came to, awakened by a searing pain resounding throughout their left arm. They noticed they were sobbing heavily and curled up in a ball on a cold, hard surface.

 _Frisk! Just go back to sleep!_ Chara gave up control of their body.

“Chara, what are you doing? Why!?” Frisk almost screamed upon seeing what happened. A knife lay on the ground next to them.

_I thought… you’d hate me… and never trust me again… I’m just a burden, Frisk! I’m worthless! I’m a monster, a demon, a-_

“STOP IT!” Frisk screamed almost loud enough to wake up the whole house. “I love you, Chara.” He relaxed immediately. He felt tranquil and at peace, as if he could just melt into the feeling those words brought him.

“I really do. I don’t think you’re a monster. I’ll always trust you, I’ll never hate you, and you’re not a burden!” Frisk cried. He was more upset that Chara could do this to himself than they were about them attacking Sans. “I’ll help you in any way I can. I promise. But you have to help me, too!” He was silent. Frisk needed to do something about this bleeding, fast.

The door swung open behind them. “kid, are you alright-“ Sans’s jaw dropped and he inhaled sharply, almost recoiling at the sight. Frisk lay on the ground sat up against the wall with tears streaming down their face and a steady flow of blood coming down from their arm. “jesus, kid. what the hell happened here?” He hastily picked up Frisk with blue magic, carried him out the bathroom door, and sat him down on the bed, also using his blue magic to close the door to Frisk’s room. “shit. this is bad.”

Sans took off his jacket and wrapped the sleeves tightly around Frisk’s elbow, which did little to stop the bleeding. Frisk winced and let out a small cry from the pain.

“that’s not gonna work. your mother will freak if she sees this.” Sans raised his palm over the divisions in Frisk’s skin and focused as they slowly sealed shut under sparkles of blue. Luckily, they weren’t too deep. He wiped off the blood with his jacket. Frisk sat there for a while, whimpering with Sans’s arm tightly around their shoulder.


	6. Chapter 6

 

About five minutes passed. Once the sobbing stopped, Sans turned Frisk’s head to face them. “now, err, what was that all about?”

Frisk faced down again. Despite Chara being even further away than before, they felt his terror permeate through their conscience strongly. It seemed to say “ _Please don’t tell him.”_

“I don’t want to talk about it right now.”

Sans’s eyes sprung open wider with worry. “kid, this is serious-“

“Please, Sans. It’s alright. I need to be alone for a bit.”

He sighed and stared at Frisk with immense worry on his face. “okay. please… don’t ever do that again,” he said before blinking out of the room in an instant. He knew it was something to do with Chara, but wasn’t comfortable talking about him around Frisk following what happened by the barrier.

“Chara, are you there?” No answer. Frisk wasn’t about to give up. They lay on their back, staring at the ceiling.

 “Chara?” Still nothing. “Chara, why?”

_…I felt like a… demon after trying to kill him. I wanted to leave._

“It’s not your fault. He said some rude things, but he didn’t know.”

_I guess, but… sometimes, I can’t help it. I still feel like a helpless monster sometimes, Frisk._

“No you’re not. I don’t think you are. You’re trying to be a good person, and that’s all that matters.”

 _…Thank you._ Frisk fell asleep suddenly. Chara thought it was precious.

 

* * *

 

 

Frisk woke up for the second time that day to the familiar smell of butterscotch and cinnamon. They’d eaten so much of it across multiple timelines, but it was always something they looked forward to eating. “Chara, wake up! It’s your favourite!” He hopped out of bed quickly, leaving the purple sheets dangling off the edge and onto the floorboards, and ran downstairs, feeling Chara stirring inside of them.

_Chocolate?_

“Oops, I mean second favourite,” Frisk giggled.

Frisk ran around the corner and into the kitchen, where Toriel had set a plate with a beautiful slice of pie for them. Papyrus was also there, having almost finished his slice. Sans was nowhere to be found.

“WOWIE! YOUR MAJESTY, YOU MUST TEACH ME THE RECIPE FOR THIS MASTERPIECE!” Toriel smiled.

“Masterpiece? Why thank you, Papyrus.” Toriel turned away from washing dishes to see Frisk already digging into their slice. “Oh! I did not see you there, my child! Did you rest well?” Frisk let out a muffled “mhm” and continued destroying their slice.

“Where’s Sans?” said Frisk with an enormous mouthful. The last of the pie had been devoured.

“He is in his room, I believe. He still needs to explain where all this came from…” Frisk stood up and hugged Toriel and gave Papyrus a high-five, then ran upstairs to Sans’s room.

_Oh no. Please, Frisk, I don’t want to-_

“Shhh. We’re just gonna forget the whole thing ever happened, mkay?” Frisk knocked on the door.

“Hi, Sans!” Frisk felt Chara retreating to the back of their conscious.

“hey, kid. you alright?”

“Yeah. Can I come in?” Sans gestured for Frisk to enter and closed the door behind them.

“what’s up?”

“Sans, do you hate Chara?” The skeleton flinched.

“uhm…”

“He’s quite upset.”

“i figured. err, kid. to answer your question. since you two are probably bound together for life and all, you’re probably best buddies now, right?” The child tilted their head. “well, i’d love to say something like, ‘any friend of frisk is a friend of mine,’ but i can’t. y’see, he killed everyone and almost erased the world a while back. he almost killed me just about a day ago. and he almost killed you last night. i understand, he has problems and all, but i just can’t.”

  _Worth a try,_ they thought. Chara didn’t care for Sans anyway.

“so… speaking of last night. did you wanna talk about it?”

Once again, Frisk felt Chara urging him not to tell. “No.” Sans sighed. “So… What’s the deal with this town? Where did it come from?” They quickly changed the subject.

“did you see it before when you were on the surface? you would’ve passed through here on your way to the hole near the ruins.” Frisk shook their head, and Sans seemed unsurprised. “huh. well, it’s sort of just… here. i was gonna explain to you all later, but i guess i can give you an exclusive preview of my speech.” Frisk sat down on the bed, and listened intently. They didn’t remember this town when they were on the surface, and they weren’t underground long enough for it to be constructed and simply left abandoned like this. Sans knew a lot about a lot of things that Frisk didn’t understand, and they expected him to have a good answer.

“so, as it turns out, this timeline is really dissimilar from the others. usually the actions you take and your resets only have repercussions back in the underground. generally here on the surface, the same stuff transpires as it did during all the previous resets.” Frisk didn’t understand a few of those words, but nodded insistently anyway. “this time around, things are different. from when we were watching the sunset earlier, i felt some serious discrepancies in space-time nearby. long story short, your resets caused such disorders in this timeline that parts of an alternate timeline merged with ours, resulting in this here town. who knows what else is different? hopefully nothing bad. but for now, everything seems fine.” Frisk tilted their head. They had never been able to manipulate things out of the underground. “so, uh. better go repeat that to the others then, help them get settled in, y’know. all that stuff.” Frisk nodded, and followed Sans downstairs.


	7. Chapter 7

The town, eloquently named “New New Home” by its mayor Asgore, had been sanctioned off by the human government and relations between the two races seemed positive. No humans were allowed to enter it without explicit permission from some rather intimidating officials. Undyne found them puny; however she stood well over six and a half feet tall and towered over most of them. Frisk tried telling her that they were like a human equivalent of the Royal Guard, but she didn’t seem very happy with that.

“Royal Guard? They don’t even have any armour! They look like they’re dressed for a date or something!” Undyne jeered after meeting with them.

Several of the human officials seemed intimidated by Undyne, Asgore, and Toriel, who had maintained communications and relationships with them over the past week. As monsters began hearing news of the fall of the barrier, they slowly began filtering out onto the streets and into unoccupied homes. Occasionally, ambassadors would come to talk with some of them. They seemed genuinely intrigued by their history and society. Sometimes, human scientists visited Alphys’s lab. There was a human there now, but not quite a scientist.

As all the human-monster relationships had been established and there wasn’t much important stuff left to do, Frisk eagerly hopped across the road to Alphys’s lab.

“M-make a monster soul? Easy… I just need the right stuff.” Frisk made sure to stipulate the words “boss monster”, which could easily result in them being turned down.

“W-what? You need a boss monster soul? W-why?”

Frisk took a deep breath, and asked Alphys if she remembers the flower she carried out her determination experiments on.

“O-oh… Yeah... c-carry on.”

Frisk told them who Flowey was, how he was still in the underground, and how they wanted to bring him back to the surface. Alphys was visibly shaken.

“F-Flowey is… A-Asriel? F-Frisk… If you bring him back… That might… Asgore will...” Frisk was pouting and clasping their hands together in such an adorable way that Alphys simply could not say no to.

“I guess… They won’t hate me if I tell them about… F-flowey, will they?” Frisk shook their head insistently. “I’ll work on it… Boss monster souls aren’t much different… I have some leftover determination… Check back here tomorrow, alright?” Frisk nodded and thanked Alphys, before running outside.

They returned home to Papyrus wailing about spaghetti. Toriel felt relieved seeing them enter the doorway, as that would mean Papyrus would stop talking about spaghetti for at least 5 minutes.

 

* * *

 

 

Frisk needed to stand on a small box in order to reach their toothbrush and the toothpaste tubes above the sink. They brushed their teeth zealously, occasionally splashing water on the new pyjamas Toriel made for them.

_Why are you brushing so… intensely?_

“I’m excited.” mumbled Frisk through the wad of bubbles frothing in their mouth. They rinsed the bubbles out and spat them down the drain.

 _Oh. Me too._ Frisk giggled, and leapt onto their bed. They imagined Asriel in the bed across from them. Its sheets were still practically untouched. Frisk had put Chara and Asriel’s heart lockets inside of the nightstand beside them, and the family photo from New Home rested atop it. Frisk wished they could’ve been in it, but it was there for Chara more than it was for them.

_You know, I haven’t felt like this in a long time. You helped me through so much, and you never gave up on me. It feels… weird._

Frisk blushed as they felt their arms wrapping around themselves.

 _But sometimes… Regardless of all that… I just feel so empty._ Frisk’s expression dropped.

“What? Chara, are you okay?”

_I’m okay, Frisk. It’s just… despite how happy I am right now… sometimes, I just feel like a waste. Like I’m just living in your shadow and burdening you. I know it’s not like that, but… I can’t help it._

“Chara, I love you.” They always said this whenever Chara felt upset, always feeling the impact of it on him immediately. Frisk treasured the way Chara reacted to being told that; they thought it was adorable. Usually, he’d stop whatever he was doing, whether it be having a panic attack or attempting to solve a puzzle for Frisk, and just savour the feeling.

They felt Chara stir for a bit, followed a delightful sensation of happiness in their stomach. He relaxed immediately, soaking in the impression of being genuinely loved and felt all the sorrow flush out as pleasure flooded in to take its place.

Frisk stared at the wall trying not to acknowledge Chara’s feelings so much, so he wouldn’t feel embarrassed. A while passed. Frisk and Chara often had deep conversations before bed.

“Chara, do you ever want to tell Mom and Dad that you’re here?” Frisk noticed sometimes that Chara felt particularly sad that Toriel and Asgore had no idea he was alive.

_Maybe some time, but not now. Azzy will be enough of a shock for them, if we can bring him here._

“I can’t wait for him to come home. He can sleep in the bed over there, and we can stay up late talking to each other. Just us three.”

_I’d love that. Mom used to get mad when she heard us laughing. We used to do that a lot, because Asriel hated sleeping… He used to have a lot of nightmares. That reminds me… He doesn’t even know I’m still alive._

“He’ll find out soon.”

 _Thanks, Frisk._ They felt a tear rolling down their cheek.

“What’s wrong?”

 _I’m just… I…_ Chara began bawling into the pillow to stifle the sobs, tears flowing down their cheeks and memories of him and Asriel flooding them both. _I’ve missed him so much all this time, and now I might see him again…_ Frisk badly wanted to squeeze Chara tight and never let go.

 _I’ve always been so alone, Frisk. It’s been you and me for so long. Even before then, Asriel was the only friend I’d ever had. But now… I feel far from lonely, even though you’re the only one who knows I exist._ They remained silent for a while; not trying to sleep, but simply enjoying each other’s eternal company.

“Chara, why did you climb Mt. Ebott? Asriel said he knows.” This caught Chara off guard, but Frisk felt they were close enough now to share these kind of things. Chara thought for a second.

 _I ran away._ Chara began choking up. _My parents didn’t want me anymore._

“Chara…”

 _So I left that night, and I ran. I brought a knife with me. I ran up the mountain because the legend said people who climbed it would disappear. And that’s all I wanted._ Chara stopped for a moment to regain composure. _I met Asriel and Mom and Dad, and although my life was so much better with them, I never got over what it was like before then. I woke up every morning expecting Dad to have his trident up to my throat, or Asriel turn on me and do something to me in my sleep. But it never happened. They really loved me. And I couldn’t understand why anyone would, until I met you. That’s why, Frisk… I’m so excited to love again, to love him without the fear of it going to waste. But I still have that feeling. I can’t stop it, but… you make it so much easier to deal with._

“I’m so glad you told me.”

_Me too. Why did you climb the mountain, Frisk?_

“I don’t really remember. I remember accidentally falling down. I don’t remember my family before then...”

_It’s been a while, I guess._

“Yeah.” Frisk yawned. “I’m so tired. Goodnight, Chara.”

 _I love you._ It was abrupt, but genuine.

Frisk grinned from ear to ear.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I think this is adorable.

Frisk sat upon Sans’s bed, clutching a small jar that had a white soul inside. The soul was much different from Frisk’s, as it was upside down. A faint white light spilled out of the jar. Seeing it, remembering Chara at New Home, and noting all the times they’d met Asriel filled them both with determination.

Sans was standing next to the window. It housed an unobstructed view of Mt. Ebott.

“well, you might’ve finally done it. no guarantee if that soul will be of any use to him, but it’ll be worth a shot.”

“I hope it works.”

“yeah. it should.” Sans turned around and looked at Frisk. “frisk. do you remember how I said this timeline was messed up?” They nodded curiously. “alphys and I never stopped running our timeline readings. there’s been a lot of spikes. we noticed that something is actively trying to manipulate the timeline. we have no solid evidence as to what it could be, but we know it’s a result of the timelines becoming disrupted.” Frisk tilted their head to the side. Whatever it was, they couldn’t really care less unless it stopped them from being able to save Asriel. “as for what i think, i have a feeling it’s gaster, the old royal scientist. when he died, parts of him got scattered across different timelines. all these disturbances could have caused most of his parts to coagulate in this timeline. what he will do, if anything, i have no idea.”

“now, my point is. bringing the prince back will have a serious effect on the timeline. it’ll disrupt things enough to awaken the anomaly. i’m not trying to scare you out of doing this, kid. nor am i trying to tell you to stop. but if i could handle it by myself, i wouldn’t have told you about it.” Frisk nodded slowly. They didn’t quite understand most of what he said. “that being said… i’m sure it’s nothing you can’t handle. you ready?”

Frisk nodded furiously and put on a serious face – as serious as they could manage. Frisk had the two heart lockets in their pocket, they took the soul jar and secured it safely in their backpack, Chara was mentally prepared for the worst, and Sans had saved up his magic for the unlikely event he needed to intervene. He opened up one of his notorious shortcuts and let Frisk lead the way.

They stepped out of the shortcut and they were standing on the edge of the hole where they had fallen down, and Sans appeared beside them shortly after. It was still the same as when they first arrived; very dark around the edges with verdant overgrowth sprouting from numerous cracks in the cavern’s ceiling and floor. The hole was huge; you could easily lower a truck or large vehicle down it. It was also very deep. Frisk couldn’t see the bottom as he peered over the verge.

“so, you want me to stay up here?” Frisk nodded.

_Is he down there?_

“I hope so.”

“huh?”

“I was talking to Chara.” Sans frowned.

“well, i’ll lower you down there. hang on tight. if anything happens, make a noise or something.” Frisk felt themself become weightless as Sans moved them dead-center above the circular chasm. Slowly, they gradually descended for what seemed to be an eternity.

_Wow, we really did fall down a long way, huh?_

“Yeah. Lucky those flowers were there.”

After a relaxing trip down, Frisk’s feet touched solid – soft - ground as they stood upon the familiar bed of golden flowers. Here, they laughed and cried with Asriel so many times, facing disappointment and guilt with each failed attempt to save them. This time, it would be different.

The cavern was the same. Warm light encompassed the flowers, and cool air flowed down from below. The edges of the cavern were very dark, making it appear as if it extended forever.

Chara felt a feeling similar to what he felt back in New Home. Frisk was filled with determination.

“Asriel?” They called out into the darkness.

As if they’d been waiting for this moment, a small golden flower popped out of the ground in front of them. Chara decided to zone out until their brother’s verdict was administered. He’d start crying for sure.

“Frisk, You came back…”

“I said I would. Don’t you remember, Asriel?” The flower hunched over slightly.

“Don’t call me that!” A ring of white pellets encircled them, but dissipated when their owner recalled the promise they made.

“I have something for you.” Frisk reached into their pocket, and pulled out Asriel’s heart locket.

“What? Frisk, how did you get that?” Flowey stared at it with his eyes wide open, an indescribable expression crossing his face.

“Asriel, can you turn into… Asriel? Just for a moment?”

“I could… it’d take a lot of effort, and almost all of what’s left of my determination. But why? I can’t come back. Don’t you get it?”

“Please. I want to see how it looks on you.”

“Ugh, fine. Maybe I’ll die from it.” Slowly, the flower morphed and contorted into a twisted, bipedal shape. Their form smoothed out more and more until there stood Asriel. He looked very stressed, as if it took a lot of effort to maintain that form. Frisk slowly walked up to him, and put the locket around his neck as he twitched from the sensation of being touched. He was being surprisingly cooperative.

“It looks good on you.”

“Ugh.” Asriel scoffed. Frisk had never seen that before. “Okay, now what?”

“I have something else.” They slung around their backpack and unzipped it, carefully pulling out the jar. They held it up to Asriel proudly. “A soul.” He had an absolutely dazed expression on his face; his jaw hung open so far that Frisk could see his tiny rear fangs. They appeared slightly misshapen.

“Frisk…” He stared at the soul for a bit before a sudden sadness swept across his face. “That’s a boss monster soul. Did… Did Mom… or Dad…?”

“My friend made it. Mom and Dad are fine. Would you like to come home with me?” His eyes opened wide at the offer.

“Frisk… I… They’ll have so many questions… Eventually they’ll find out about what I did as a flower, and they’ll-“

“That flower wasn’t you. Please, will you take it?” They noticed Asriel was sweating. Melting. His determination was running out.

“I… I…” He muttered.

“Please, you’re melting! Yes or no!?”

“Frisk… I’ll do it.”

 They beamed, snickered, squealed, and jumped all at once. But there was no time to waste. Quickly, they unscrewed the cap of the soul container and gave its contents to Asriel. The white heart eased into his chest as he pushed it in. _Please work._

Frisk held their forearm over their eyes at the bright white flash that emanated from Asriel’s new soul.

They uncovered their eyes, watching closely as Asriel looked around the cavern seemingly bewildered. The parts on his face where he began to melt had been restored, and he appeared a lot less anxious.

Asriel looked down at his toes and wriggled them. It felt funny. He pulled silly faces at Frisk, and that also felt funny. He clenched his fists and blinked rapidly.

He looked at Frisk in the eyes for a bit. He smiled. He felt… love.

“It worked…” The realization hit him like a hammer to the gut. “It worked! Frisk, it worked!” He stared at Frisk for a while, smiling, then without warning, slammed into them hard enough to send him tumbling over onto the bed of golden flowers with his arms around wrapped them. He clutched them so tightly; he swore he heard their sweater rip. He buried his snout into their shoulder and sobbed tears of happiness as Frisk did the same. The two children rolled around on the flowers, cuddling and laughing, winding each other with tight squeezes. Asriel’s fur was so soft and his embrace so cosy that if Frisk fell asleep in this position, they might never wake up.

_Hey, Chara?_

He emerged, fearing for the worst. His brother being unable to absorb the soul, maybe? Or perhaps he did something on accident, and Sans killed him on the spot.

Instead, he was overwhelmed by a wave of moods he couldn’t describe, but far from disappointment.

The two children sat up, clutching each other’s hands and smiling brightly. Chara couldn’t believe his eyes. He thought he was dreaming again. He released his grip on one of Asriel’s hands and gently touched his face.

“Hey!” Asriel laughed. It sort of tickled, but the touch was… warm. Blazing heat compared to the cold they’d suffered for so long. He didn’t even pretend to be annoyed by it. Much like his hug with Frisk after they fought, he wouldn’t mind if it carried on forever.

“It’s really you…”

“I know right, Frisk! I can feel again!”

“Azzy…”

“Azzy?” Asriel raised an eyebrow.

“It’s me, Chara!” He put on his signature smile.

“What? Frisk, that’s not funny,” he scolded. “Chara’s been gone for a long time.”

“No, I haven’t,” said Chara as heartily as ever, stunning his brother. “I’m still here.”

“…Chara? You…” He felt something familiar about how he spoke, about his smile, and clutched his hand tighter. “It is you…”

Chara yanked Asriel’s arm as hard as he could, pulling his brother into a crushing embrace as he bawled into the crook of his shoulder. They lay closely together, side by side once again atop the flowers. “I missed you so much, Azzy! I’m so sorry! I’m sorry for-“

He squeezed Chara hard enough to force all of the air out of him. “I-I missed you too, Chara. It’s okay.” It wasn’t long before they were both crying their eyes out into each other’s striped sweaters.

Chara’s voice was broken apart by sobs. “I love you…”

“I love you too, Chara.”

 

* * *

 

 

They sat upright upon the golden flowers again, staring into each other’s eyes and clasping each other’s hand. Both of the human children thought Asriel was adorable, especially his floppy ears and his tiny fangs and the small tuft of fur at the top of his head that never went down when he tried to brush it.

They all decided Chara would raise Frisk’s free hand if it was him speaking while they were explaining how Chara could still be alive, as Asriel must be really confused. He initially thought Frisk was playing some kind of cruel trick on them, leading him to believe he was in some sort of nightmare that was about to go wrong any moment.

“When I fell down, Chara’s soul bound with mine because of my determination.”

“So… you two are like… together forever now?”

“I guess.”

“That’s so cool! Frisk… and Chara… I… Thank you…” Asriel began tearing up again.

 “Cry baby.” Chara sneered; ironically he had been responsible for at least half of the tears currently streaming down Frisk’s face.

“We’re all cry-babies here, aren’t we?” Frisk amended.

Asriel let out a loveable groan and slumped over onto Frisk, passing out immediately. Frisk and Chara were worried for a bit, but heard his soft snores and wrapped their arms around him in relief.

 _Thank you, Frisk._ There was no response.

_…Why do you suddenly fall asleep all the time?_

* * *

 

 

It was getting dark outside. Sans was still standing at the opening to the Ruins, and he couldn’t see down the hole at all. He’d been toying around on his phone most of the time, enamouring himself in the art of bamboozling his brother via miscellaneous puns. If not for the convenient day and night cycle of the surface, Sans would have forgotten about the kid. He punished himself for that and called down the hole.

“frisk? you alright?”

No response. Either they wandered deeper into the underground (which was unlikely) or that flower did something. He readied the worst of his magic, and blinked down to the bed of golden flowers. He didn’t see anything at first, as it was almost pitch black.

“ _A l r i g h t, p o l l e n b o y. . .“_ His left pupil blacked out, and he flashed his other eye blue to get a quick impression of what his surroundings were.

He looked down at the flowers in the brief moment his eye illuminated the room, and saw the absolute most adorable thing he’d ever seen as his pupils faded back in. He turned on his phone’s flashlight to get a better look. A miniature Toriel snuggling up to Frisk, who had a sleepy smile across their face and a certain goat child in a bear hug that looked rather painful. Asriel was wearing a beautiful heart shaped locket, and Frisk was holding another one between their fingers behind him. Sans chuckled, and took a picture on his phone.

“oh man. that’s beautiful. tori’ll love that. i’ll have to frame it.” Sans frowned for a bit. “hmm… tori. i guess i’ll take them to alphys’s place, then.”

Sans looked at the picture for a bit, and sent it to Alphys with the caption _“can i bring ‘em over for tonight?”_ Almost immediately, he got a reply.

_“OMG!!! Thats so cute!!! Is that asriel?? Is he alive?”_

_“yup, by the looks of it. i figured it might not be a good idea to just appear in tori’s house with her dead child”_

_“Yes, bring them over!!”_

Sans opened up a shortcut into a  room in Alphys’s house and gently moved the two interlocked children through it, careful not to disturb them, and placed them gently upon a small bed in a spare bedroom. He quietly walked out of the room, scaring the hell out of Alphys.

“AH! Sans, h-how did you get… never mind.” Sans winked. “Are they in there?”

“yup. warning, cuteness overload. where’s undyne?”

“Um, asleep I think.” Alphys carefully crept into the room and turned on a lamp to see them. “Oh my…” She smiled, and turned around to face Sans standing in the doorway.

“they finally got him…”

“I’ll have to run some tests on him tomorrow… check if he’s okay… but we’ll let them sleep for now.”

“sounds good. i’ll tell tori that frisk is staying with you guys to watch cartoons or somethin’.”

Alphys nodded, and took another look at the two entwined children. They began snoring quietly, and she couldn’t help but notice how they kept squeezing each other tighter in their sleep, grasping at each other to make sure they were still there. It was _heart-melting._ Frisk and Asriel… Toriel and Asgore would finally be happy…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I figured since Flowey can morph his face into basically whatever, why not his entire body?


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Couldn't sleep without finishing this one, heh.

Asriel woke up to a number of weird sensations. Firstly, someone was in front of him with their face in his shoulder, squeezing him tightly. Secondly, he could feel his arms and legs, they were wrapped in what felt like a blanket. Thirdly, he felt… happy? Warm? Even loved? But he hadn’t felt that in so long, he couldn’t say for sure. They recognized the person they were embracing so closely to be Frisk.

“Oh… I don’t wanna wake up from this one…” He thought he was dreaming and sobbed helplessly, because he’d wake up soon as an emotionless flower.

But, it didn’t happen.

“Asriel?” He flinched, and Frisk pulled their head out of Asriel’s chest for a moment to face him. He couldn’t free his hands, as they were tightly wrapped around Frisk’s abdomen and he didn’t want to let go. Frisk noticed a tear streaking down his fur, and somehow held him even closer.

“Is this a dream?”

“No.” Frisk thought so too for a bit considering they woke up on a bed, but figured Sans must have brought them here.

He squeezed Frisk tighter. They definitely seemed… real. Then, they recalled what happened before he fell asleep. Frisk had given them a soul, and Chara was still alive, and they’d see Mom and Dad again soon, and…

“I… I don’t want to let go…”

“We can stay here forever if you want.”

“I’d like that.” Frisk smiled. “…Is Chara there?”

“Mhm.”

_Chara? Wake up!_

_Ughhh, Frisk, I slept terribly. Can we go back to…? Oh!_ Frisk let him have his turn cuddling their puffball goat brother.

“Good morning, Azzy!” Somehow Chara had far greater physical strength than Frisk, and used it to squeeze him twice as hard as he was before.

“Ow!” Chara eased the hold slightly. “Good morning, Chara. And good morning to you, Frisk!” The two would have to settle on how they distributed control when hugging Asriel. Frisk was burying his face deeper into Asriel’s soft and fluffy sweater, and Chara was squeezing him tight. It felt good to hug someone the same size as them.

“So… Asriel, do you wanna meet Mom and Dad?” He smiled half-heartedly.

“Yeah!”

“Okay. Stay here, Frisk needs to get Sans.” Chara hopped out for a moment.

Asriel was familiar with Sans; he had caused him to reset several times as a flower. He hoped Sans wouldn’t know…

“…Sans?”

“Don’t worry. He just needs to do some tests, and-“

“Sans knows what I did… as a flower,” he interrupted.

“Flower? You’re not a flower anymore. We can forget about all of that now,” said Frisk assuringly. They smiled at one another, and then reluctantly untangled themselves from the intense death grip they fell asleep in. Once they had emerged from their embrace, they sat beside each other on the bed.

“W-Will I turn back? What if I…” Frisk could tell he was having trouble coming to terms with this; he’d basically been dead for years and now he was just… back.

“You won’t. Come on; let’s go get ready to meet Mom and Dad!” Frisk snatched his brother’s hand and dragged him out of the room. “Sans! Alphys!”

Sans and Alphys were sitting at the dinner table looking rather serious bouncing scientific lingo off of each other. Frisk noticed the word “anomaly” a lot. There were lots of graphs and sheets of paper with walls of math equations written on them, caked in symbols Frisk had never seen. Math was a lot like magic to them, only a lot more structured. And harder to understand.

“hey, kids. sleep well?” The two children nodded, but Asriel was a little shy and was hiding slightly behind Frisk. “it sure looked like it, eh alphys?”

Alphys made a weird expression. “O-oh my god. Yes. Um. I mean, uh… how are you feeling? Asriel?” The goat child muttered something before retreating behind Frisk some more. Sans raised a non-existent eyebrow.

“O-oh. I’m sorry, umm… I forgot to introduce myself… I’m Doctor Alphys… the Royal Scientist! I work for, um… Asgore. Your father?”

“My father? Is he okay?”

“Y-Yes. In fact, he’s just across the road from here…”

Asriel beamed. “And… Mom?” Sans chuckled at his reaction.

“T-Toriel? She’s across the road as well.” Frisk pulled their arm around his shoulder as his jaw dropped slightly.

"Well... Golly, I... Thank you so much, Doc!" He smiled, revealing his tiny fangs.

"N-No problem! I'll need to run some tests on you to see if you're okay to go, first. So, if you'd like, just go to my lab and I'll be there in a second." The goat child looked confused and wandered around for a bit.

"Lab? Where?"

"O-Oh. Right. Erm, right this way." Frisk joined Sans at the dinner table to talk for a bit as she stood up and awkwardly moved from the kitchen and down the hallway to a side door that led into her garage, with Asriel close behind her. 

"Frisk said you were the reason I turned into a flower." Alphys's eyes shot open and she put her hands over her mouth. 

"I-I'm... Uh..." 

"So, thanks for fixing me!" Alphys sighed in relief and stepped into her laboratory. Asriel gaped at all the sciencey stuff everywhere; beakers filled with liquids of various colours, machines with moving parts, piles of notes stacked upon desks besides massive computer screens, and... strange posters on the wall. Alphys rummaged through a box on the floor and pulled out what looked like a laser gun to Asriel, hooking it up to one of the scattered computer screens.

"So, uhh... just relax for a bit, I just need to get some information from your soul power." She stepped towards him and pointed the weird gun-looking thing at his chest, which caused some weird lines to jump up and down on the computer screen before flattening out.

"Looks stable... Can you try... um... jumping up and down?"

Asriel shrugged and started hopping up and down, and blushed as he noticed his ears were doing the same. The white line on the monitor seemed to become rougher and more disjointed.

"Okay, you can stop now." Asriel gladly stopped, just doing that made him feel absolutely exhausted. "It looks like... you're good to go! Except, um... I notice your soul power starts... decreasing when you undergo physical activity." Asriel frowned. Would that mean he can't chase around Frisk? "So... if you feel tired... just, uh... lie down or something. Alright?" Asriel nodded and smiled. He was so tired of being a flower.

* * *

 

"i'm happy for ya, kid. him too. tori's gonna be shocked to hell, though. and asgore, well you know what he's like." Sans winked, alluding to Frisk's time travel antics. "he'll probably just go catatonic or somethin'."

"so, chara is his brother, right?" Frisk nodded. "huh. i guess i'll have no choice but to respect him, then," Sans said genuinely. Chara didn't buy it and scoffed.

"well, there's your happy ending. i take it that marks the end of the resets?" Frisk nodded again, not feeling particularly communicative. "well, that's a relief. except for... that anomaly. while you and your new brother were cuddling each other to death..." They blushed deeply, wanting to protest about how he'd do the same if he was in their situation. "it seemed to get more and more agitated over time. i say agitated because, it's  probably a living being. why am i telling you this? just a heads up. if anything goes wrong, i'll let you know. but for now, enjoy life here on the surface with asriel. ya definitely worked hard for it." All Frisk had to communicate was a nod.

Frisk perked out of his sappy mood upon hearing the sound of Asriel's paws against the floor, followed by Alphys. The two humans exchanged control to greet him; surprisingly Sans did not show any discomfort or anxiety.

"Hey, Az!" Chara leapt off the chair and ran up to his brother. "Are you good to go?" Frisk had never seen Chara so bubbly before.

"Yeah! Is that Chara?" He said quietly, evoking a nod. "Alphys said I can't, uhhh... undergo fizz..." Chara giggled as his brother tripped over on his pronunciation.

"Uhh.. Physical Activity... yeah. Frisk, uhm... If he looks unwell after running around, get him to lie down, alright? Apart from that, he seems fine." Chara nodded, not minding being referred to as Frisk. What could he do about it, anyway? 

"So can I meet Mom and Dad now?"

"Uhm..." Alphys fidgeted with her fingers. Asriel didn't quite understand her; her awkward demeanor made it feel like he was doing something rude throughout the testing.

"yeah, buddy. i'll give her a ring now and tell her she's in for a big surprise." Sans pulled out his phone and dialled the number, and Asriel was quaking with anticipation. Chara rubbed his back to calm him down.

"hey. yeah, frisk is good. they'll be home in a moment. by the way, they've got a huge surprise with them. what is it? heh. invite asgore over. trust me, you'll both wanna see this. cya." The phone clicked off. "well, they're expecting you. you ready?" Asriel turned to Chara who gave a bright smile, then back to Sans for a confident nod. "well, follow me then." Sans waved Alphys goodbye and walked over to the front door, leading the way for the two kids. 

Asriel marvelled at the sight of the surface. The sun was high in the cerulean heavens with not a cloud in sight, and raining down warm sunlight on every square inch of land. The footpaths were lined with beautiful, trimmed shamrock grass. Occasionally, a rose or daisy could be seen sprouting in a small patch along the strip. Tall trees generated a satisfying rustling sound as the gentle breeze swept over through the emerald leaves, simultaneously wiping off the accumulating heat from the sunbeams coming down on them. Across from him was a cozy purple home with two floors, and beside that an identical one but with a heavily tended lawn with picturesque hedges and fountains. Asriel decided that this would be truly the first time he saw the surface.

"It's so much nicer than last time..." He said, resulting in an involuntary wince from Chara. 

"huh? last time? you been up here before?" Sans shot Frisk an odd look.

"Yeah, a long time ago when I left with Chara's soul." His voice began trembling. "B-But then, I..."

Sans punished themselves some more for not remembering that. "it's alright, kiddo. that's all in the past now. you got frisk and chara with you now."

"You know about Chara?" Asriel looked up at the skeleton, confused. He was slightly shorter than Frisk.

"yup. don't worry about it." Asriel steeled himself as he crossed the road, standing tightly between Sans and Frisk.

He followed Sans up the doorstep, with Frisk beside him who had one hand on his shoulder, and they knocked on the door.

Soon, it swung open. "Hello, my-" 

Toriel's eyes snapped open in... shock? Horror? Was this a dream? A hallucination? A cruel prank?

She closed her eyes and opened them, rubbed them, even turned around and back again to make sure that what she was seeing was real. She closed the door and opened it again.

And it appeared to be so.

She looked at Sans in the eye, who just shrugged and winked. Frisk, too, had only a smile to offer, and so would Chara.

She looked at Asriel in the eye. He was grinning so hard that even his rear fangs poked out from behind his cheeks. He felt his heart quaking, an intense bubbling feeling rising to his stomach as he eagerly looked upon his mother.

"It's me, Mom! I'm back! Frisk br-" He was swept up in a  _crushing_ hug that left him breathless, squeezing tears of joy out of his eyes. The embrace was so tight, he couldn't even return the hug. Sans and Frisk smiled at each other. Chara helped amplify Frisk's grin.

"Asriel! It's... It's you!" The embrace tightened even more as Asriel was effortlessly lifted off the ground. "But how? My dearest child, how have you returned?"

"Alphys made a soul for me, and Frisk gave it to me, and-" 

"Tori?" A deep voice bellowed from deeper within the household. "Tori, are you alright? I heard-" She turned around, tightly clutching Asriel. "Is that?"

"Yes, Asgore." He stared blankly at Toriel.

"My... son? Oh dear. I've slept in, haven't I? I was meant to be meeting Tori..."

"Asgore! This is real! Asriel is alive!" Toriel said sternly. It was a calm voice that seemed to be scalding at the same time. She walked up to Asgore and held Asriel close to his chest as tears ran down her cheeks.

"Dad! It's me!" Asriel leapt onto his father, clutching his huge shoulders like monkey bars as he began cradling him in his massive arms.

"It's you... You're back... How..." Asgore still seemed stunned. "I love you, my son. I missed you so much, I did some horrible things in my grief... But... Despite my sins, you are here. H-How?"

"Alphys made a soul for me!" Asgore clutched him tighter, not even wanting to question that. He felt Toriel's arms wrap around him, but didn't protest. For once, even if for just a brief moment, he felt at peace.

Asriel savoured this feeling, squashed between his two parents in a hug that radiated enough love to make up for all those years as a flower.

"Alphys...?"

* * *

 

Once the initial shock resulting form their son who had been dead for what seemed like eternity simply showing up at their doorstep had subsided, Frisk and Sans took the liberty of explaining to the two flabbergastered boss monsters just how that was possible. Asgore could not fit on Toriel's dining room chairs, so had to lean up against the refridgerator. The rest of the family sat together around the table. Papyrus, however, was busy training with Undyne and Sans was with Alphys discussing matters pertaining to the anomalies and Asriel. Toriel had begun preparing a butterscotch-cinnamon pie which was now cooling down on the stovetop to celebrate the arrival of Asriel, providing a delicious scent to accompany their conversation.

"Frisk, I am grateful and all, but... How has this come to be?" Asgore's voice was solemn, as if he still had trouble accepting this was real. Frisk swallowed and prepared to tell them about the resets, about Flowey, about everything.

They started by asking them if they remembered a talking flower back in the underground.

"I do remember, Frisk. He tried to kill you when we first met." Asriel pouted slightly.

"As do I. He ensnared us in vines, and after that... I do not recall what happened."

Frisk continued, explaining that this flower was Asriel. They told them how Asriel's dust scattered across the flowers, and when Alphys injected determination into one of them his essence lived on inside of it. They told them how Asriel absorbed all their souls to gain the equivalent 7 human souls, and after an intense fight selflessly used their power to destroy the barrier. Asgore and Toriel looked dumbfounded. They continued, recounting how sad they were when Asriel told them how he was simply going to turn back into a flower and how he did not deserve such a fate, thus leading Frisk to discuss the resets. The two boss monsters appeared even more dumbstruck upon hearing just how many times Frisk had reset for the sake of their son, and how they never gave up despite dozens and dozens of failures.

"It is true, I felt like I was meeting an old friend for the first time when we met in the ruins," said Toriel.

"Frisk... You have endured so much to bring happiness to our son," said Asgore with a long-lost hint of happiness coming through with his words. "I... I cannot even begin to express my gratitude. I promise, Frisk, your efforts will not be in vain. Tori and I will do everything we can to ensure the best life for you and Asriel, our children. Considering these, 'resets', I may have asked you this before in another, err, 'timeline'. But Frisk, this time is different, and I am honored to ask you: will you become part of our family, become a Dreemurr?" Asgore looked on hopefully at Frisk before they nodded rapidly and jumped up to  hug him, failing to reach his arms all the way around his titanic thigh. Toriel seemed impressed with Asgore somewhat.

"Indeed," said Toriel. "but I believe the pie has cooled down!"

Asgore could not miss an opportunity to have a happy dinner with his family, so he made his best attempt to fit on one of Toriel's chairs and cram his legs beneath the table. Toriel sliced the pie into five equal parts and stacked them onto clean plates, and handed them out to everyone. Asgore inspected his food for a bit; he had been trying to figure out how Toriel made these pies so delicious for a while now. She looked at him and laughed.

"Asgore, the secret does not lie in its appearance, you know." The giant of a monster nodded in agreement and began slowly consuming the pie. Frisk and Asriel on the other hand  were scarfing the pie down as if they hadn't eaten in years.

"Asriel, my child, you must be so hungry after all this time!" He nodded and smiled to reveal chunks of pie stuck to his fangs, eliciting a concerned look from everyone which he giggled off.

Chara was content. He didn't really want his presence to be known to Asgore and Toriel anyway; having Asriel around was more than enough to satisfy him. Once the two children were done with their pie, Frisk eagerly asked to be dismissed.

"Can I show Asriel his room? There's a spare bed next to mine!" Frisk still hadn't fully chewed their pie, much to Toriel's dismay.

"Of course, my child. But please remember to chew your food properly before you swallow," she insisted. "You will get a tummy ache!" 

Frisk smiled at Toriel and Asgore before taking his brother's hand and dragging him upstairs.

"Our room? We have a room?"

"Yeah!"

Frisk pulled them through the door and escorted Asriel around.

"This is my bed, the bathroom's over there, your bed's there, there's the wardrobe, there's a lamp there..." He ignored Frisk pointing everywhere and focused on one small detail of the room. On the nightstand between the two beds, he saw a framed photo that he recognized very well. "Asriel?" The goat child walked closer to the photo and picked it up. It was an old family photo. Toriel and Asgore were so tall that the camera needed to be positioned so far away in order to fit everyone in the shot. Asriel was holding a bundle of golden flowers, and Chara's face was hidden behind the one they were holding. He looked down and grabbed his heart locket out of beneath his sweater. Frisk walked up next to him and smiled, resting their head on his shoulder.

"It'll be just like the old days... right, Chara?" Chara nodded in agreement. Asriel put the photo back down and looked around the room. The walls and linen of the beds were nice shades of lavender, while the carpet was a deep purple. There was a window above the nightstand, but a tree obstructed the view so Frisk just left the blinds closed most of the time.

"Frisk... I never did thank you for this, did I?"

"It's okay, you don't have to..." Frisk raised their head and faced him.

"No, Frisk. Thank you so much." Asriel was smiling. "Secretly, I wished you could help me... but I knew there was no way, so I didn't expect anything from you." Frisk gave in and wrapped their arms around Asriel. He was like a living stuffed animal; they could get used to hugging him so much. "And Chara... I forgive you," he said before being squeezed extremely hard once again.

"Geez, Chara. You always were strong..."

"Yeah, I know..."

The two let go of each other before hurrying back downstairs. Frisk's tour of their room wasn't really effective as Asriel had almost immediately forgotten what it looked like.

"It truly is a miracle, Tori. I apologize for my reaction, I simply could not believe what I was seeing." Asgore's voice was loud enough to shake the household if he ever decided to speak up, but he was not the type of person that got angry.

"It is okay, Asgore. I had a similar reaction." Toriel looked away from Asgore to see their two children sitting upon the couch, watching... television?

"Frisk, this show is boring!" Asriel protested against the strange configurement of colored bars on the screen. 

"Azzy, are you serious? This isn't a show!" Chara heartily reprimanded, stifling Frisk's giggles.

"Oh. What is it?"

 "I dunno. But it's not a show."

"Hello, my children! Have you sorted your sleeping arrangements?" They nodded. "That is good. I presume you two are looking for something to do?" They nodded again, their eyes not leaving the televsion screen.

"Perhaps, Tori, we could watch a movie together?" Asgore said hopefully. 

"That sounds like fun. Do you have a movie we can watch?"

"No, however I could go borrow one from Alphys." Frisk smiled and nodded, they loved Alphys's cartoons.

* * *

 

Asgore returned with a veritable selection of movie-length cartoons. Asriel immediately saw one  with what looked like a huge armoured robot on the cover, and pointed at it in excitement. "That one!"

"This one?" Asgore looked at the cover. The armoured figure on the front reminded them of Undyne during training. "It certainly looks interesting." He inserted the CD into an electronic box beneath the television, and it began playing. "Human technology is not  so different from our own magic, is it?" He sat on the rather massive couch beside Frisk and Asriel, with Toriel on the other side. Neither he nor Toriel found the movie interesting whatsoever, but the children certainly did. They found themselves excitedly hopping about on the couch during the action-filled scenes, clutching each other during the dramatic scenes, and covering their eyes during the scary and romantic scenes. Their parents were paying much more attention to their children than the movie. Chara didn't find it particularly interesting either, but was satisfied with sharing Frisk's emotions instead. 

* * *

 

The movie came to an end, and Frisk and Asriel were exhausted after that emotional rollercoaster.

"That was so cool! I liked the part where the robot made that magic hammer and then hit the bad guy in the face with it!" shouted Asriel enthusiastically.

"Me too! And the part where the bad guy transformed into a giant monster! He looked so cool!" Frisk was gushing.

_What was your favourite part, Chara?_

_Oh, umm..._ He hadn't expected a question.  _The part where the robot transforms into a car and chases the bad guy down the road!_

"Indeed. It is getting late, children. I will be returning home now." Asriel looked sad.

"What? Isn't this home?"

"Your mother and I do not live together anymore, Asriel. Do not worry, I am only next door!" Asriel looked relieved, and his father chuckled heartily before kissing his children on the forehead. "Goodnight, children. Goodbye, Tori."

"Bye, Dad!"

"Goodbye, Asgore." Toriel didn't have a snarky or condescending tone in her voice, which made Frisk rather happy. Asgore left, careful not to damage the door frame with his horns.

"Well, children. Asgore is right, it is getting late. I shall carry you two to bed for tonight." Toriel scooped up her children off the couch and carried them upstairs. Despite not being babies, Toriel's motherly cradling made them feel as if they were newborns. She placed the children upon their beds, tucking them in and kissing them goodnight. She looked at her children again before leaving and closing the door behind them, tears forming in her eye.

"Chara, what was your favourite part of the movie?" asked Asriel remorsefully. "I'm sorry we didn't pay much attention to you..."

"It's okay," he amended. "Mine was when the robot transformed into a car."

"That part was so cool. Goodnight, you two!"

"Goodnight, Azzy."

_Goodnight, Frisk._

_Goodnight._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When the main plot (there was a plot?) draws closer to the end (not that this is the last chapter that follows the supposed plot, I have a lot more in mind), I'll probably just keep updating it with our beloved trio getting up to random antics. If you've made it this far in, I hope you're enjoying it.


	10. Chapter 10

_"Asriel? What's wrong?"_

He was whimpering and facing the wall. Chara got up and stood beside him.

_"Asriel? Are you okay? What's wrong?"_

He snapped around and faced Chara.

 _"Help me!"_ He recoiled in horror at Asriel's face, and was paralyzed. He couldn't move or say anything no matter how hard he tried. He was melting, vines and petals swarming out of his mouth and ears to take over his fur as it dripped down all over the sheets.  _"Please, help me! Mommy, Daddy! Someone help!"_ But nobody came. Not even Chara.

His tears were indistinguishable from his liquefying facial features, as his sharp fangs filed down to stumps and then to blobs. Chara could only look down in pure horror as the botanic tendrils contorted around his body, crushing the life out of him. Asriel's surrogate soul emerged from his body and quaked in mid air for a bit, before shattering all over the floor.

 _"Why won't you help me, Chara?"_ was his brother's final words before he sank into a pool of his own magical essence, his monster form gone and replaced with a writhing mass of plant-like appendages. A distorted voice echoed out around him as he helplessly watched his brother fade away into a plant. It seemed to be shaming him, and however distorted it sounded it sounded _real._

Soon, the entire world around him began to fade into dust until he stood in an endless black void.

_"You can't help him, little oddity. Both of you should have been dead a long time ago."_

* * *

 

Chara jolted awake, thrashing madly and tearing at the sheets as he hyperventilated through terrified sobs. He fell off the bed and blindly swung his fists around in an attempt to strike whatever was speaking to him, accidentally smashing his fist into the nightstand and shrieking out in pain. Clutching his hand, he dropped to the floor and looked around rapidly in alarm. Someone had spoken to him, and his brother had just died infront of his eyes.

"Asriel?"

He got up and brushed the intense pain in his hand aside, rushing over to his brother's bed. Indeed, it was just a nightmare. But Chara never had nightmares like that, usually they involved him being killed by something or someone and never did they involve any of the few people he cared about.

Asriel had been awake to see most of that, but he never intervened when Chara had nightmares. One time he tried to get up and hug him after he heard him screaming, but instead of receiving a hug in return he got punched in the face. From that night onward, he would just watch Chara and only involve himself if he did anything extreme. Asriel had nightmares a lot more often than he did, but from the few descriptions Chara had given them of what goes on in his nightmares, Asriel knew his paled in comparison.

"A-Asriel? A-are you awake?"

He rationalized that he probably wouldn't get punched in the face this time so he sat up, dangling his feet over the edge of the bed.

"What's wrong? Did you have a nightmare?" Chara nodded then wrapped his arms around his brother, sobbing.

"Y-You were... dying... A-And I couldn't..." His shuddering and hyperventilating pacified as Asriel rubbed his back gently.

"I'm not gonna die. Alphys said... I won't. And I don't wanna leave you again." Chara sniffed.

"I'm sorry for waking you up," he said as he withdrew from the hug.

"It's okay."

Chara thanked him and returned to bed but couldn't get comfortable again beneath the blankets he had ravaged, nor would he be able to sleep after that nightmare so he just stared at the ceiling.

"Goodnight," said Asriel, rolling over to face the wall. Chara didn't reply, just continued staring up thinking of that voice he heard.

It was true, him and his brother should have been dead a long time ago and here they were, defying all odds. But why? Was Chara really that deserving of a second chance? He didn't think so, and being called a "little oddity" was frankly offensive. 

_Who even said that? They were obviously too scared to show their face. I'd kill them otherwise. I'd stab them, I'd break their bones, I'd poke their eyes out, I'd..._

Frisk stirred awake, provoked by a brief moment of that dreaded murderous feeling and a slight ache in their right hand. They and Chara had seperate dreams, so Frisk was unaware of his nightmare.

_Chara? Are you okay?_

_I'm fine now._

_What happened?_

_Nightmare._ Frisk frowned.

_What happened in it?_

_Asriel was... dying... and a voice told me that we should both be dead._

_Asriel's not gonna die. Please, try to go back to sleep, okay?_ Frisk went silent and drifted off, not addressing the latter half of his nightmare.

* * *

 Frisk woke up to the sound of someone fumbling around in their wardrobe. It was Asriel, who was still wearing his green and yellow sweater. 

"Good morning, Frisk! Um... I've been wearing this for a while... so can I..." 

"You can wear one if you want." Chara snickered at the thought of Asriel wearing a blue and purple sweater. He pulled one out and looked at it for a bit, then made his way to their bathroom to get changed. When he emerged, Frisk laughed at him.

"Hey!" He blushed. The sweater was slightly large on him, and even on Frisk too as Toriel had knitted them slightly larger to accomodate their growth. Frisk wasn't exactly sure how old they were much to Toriel's sadness, and she had not known any human children long enough to observe their growth.

 _Did you sleep?_ Frisk thought worriedly.

_No._

The two children rushed downstairs for breakfast, and Frisk noticed Papyrus was making spaghetti while Toriel and Sans sat down at the table.

"HUMAN! I HAVE... HUMAN, WHO IS THAT?" Papyrus placed his bowl of spaghetti he had excitedly anticipated Frisk to try on the kitchen counter.

Asriel hid behind Frisk again, shying away from the skeleton. He remembered pulling several pranks on Papyrus as a flower, but Frisk had been telling them to forget about everything he'd done in his soulless form. The tall skeleton looked on at Asriel with confusion.

"hey, kids."

"SANS? YOUR MAJESTY, THERE IS AN IMPOSTOR IN THE HOUSEHOLD!" He pointed at the miniature Toriel that had just appeared infront of him.

"No, silly! That is my son!" Toriel rose from her chair and bent down to sweep the two children in a loving hug. "Good morning, children!"

"YOU HAVE A SON?" Frisk smiled at the confused skeleton, and Asriel was softly laughing at him.

"Yes, Papyrus. He died a long time ago..." She tried to suppress the bad memories of that dreadful night. "...but Frisk and Alphys brought him back!"'

"DOES THAT MEAN... YOU ARE THE PRINCE?" Papyrus looked at him with a grin.

"Y-Yeah!"

"THE MONSTER PRINCE! WHAT IS YOUR NAME, YOUR HIGHNESS?"

"Asriel Dreemurr!" Frisk and Toriel both smiled at his enthusiasm.

"ASRIEL, EH? YOU MUST MEET UNDYNE AND THE OTHERS!"

"Undyne?"

"YES! UNDYNE IS THE LEADER OF THE ROYAL GUARD!"

"Royal Guard?"

 _He's forgotten everything,_ said Chara.

"YES! THE ELITE MONSTER SQUADRON TASKED WITH PROTECTING KING ASGORE! FRISK! JOIN ME IN INTRODUCING ASRIEL TO UNDYNE!"

Frisk nodded and the two children hugged Toriel before rushing outside. The tall skeleton assisted them in crossing the road, although there were no cars Papyrus had to show that he knew the rules and dangers of the road. 

"IF YOU ARE TORIEL'S SON, DOES THAT MAKE YOU FRISK'S BROTHER?" He nodded passionately at the thought, but was slightly perturbed at how loud Papyrus spoke.

"AND YOU ARE THE PRINCE! UNDYNE WILL LOVE YOU!" Asriel thought the name "Undyne" sounded scary, but Frisk reassured him that she's a really fun person. Papyrus banged on their front door intensely, almost hard enough to break it as they stood upon the doorstep.

"COMING!" A harsh voice boomed from within the household, followed by heavy footsteps and the door swinging open. "Hey, Papyrus! Hey, Dork!" Frisk poked their tongue out at her. "Hey... Asriel!" She stared down at Asriel with delight. He looked exactly like Toriel, just tiny. Undyne wasn't as scary as Asriel thought; although she was really tall, he was also really short so he was used to looking up at everyone.

"You know me?"

"Yeah, Alphys told me all about it. She really is a whizz when it comes to anything soul-related... how do you feel?" She grinned.

"I feel great!"

"That's good! And you two?" She looked expectantly at Frisk and Papyrus, who both nodded.

"I FEEL EXCELLENT, UNDYNE!"

"Good, 'cuz you guys are gonna join me for a workout! Since you two are just sissy little kids, though, I'll tone it down for a bit. Consider yourselves spared! Follow me!" She took off down the hallway and into the first door on the right, not waiting for the trio to catch up to her. They walked at a relaxed pace through her house, past the anime posters curiously juxtaposed with cooking posters and workout posters, and followed Undyne into the door to the right. Inside was a huge room with various posters and machines scattered about everywhere. There was also a large radio near the door, but it wasn't plugged in. "Took you guys long enough!" 

"It took like five seconds!" Asriel protested.

"That's four point nine seconds too many!" she exclaimed.

"You weren't even that fast, Undyne!" Frisk added.

"Excuses!" The children gave up, and Papyrus nodded in agreement.

"THERE WILL BE NO ROOM FOR EXCUSES ONCE WE BEGIN OUR INTENSE WORKOUT REGIMEN, RIGHT UNDYNE?"

"Yeah! Especially not on THOSE!" She pointed toward two machines that looked like a conveyor belt with handles raising from the sides. "You two!" She pivoted her arm towards the children. "Get on, and run like I'm chasing you through Waterfall!" Frisk excitedly hopped on one of them, recalling how they fled from Undyne into Hotland and she passed out from the heat. The first few times it was terrifying, but then it became fun. Asriel reluctantly stepped on the one beside Frisk. Papyrus chose to aid with supervision, but Undyne wasn't convinced and thought it was an excuse to get out of exercising. "Now RUN! For 5 minutes!"

Frisk immediately began running, letting Chara step in when they began feeling tired,  and doing the same for them. Asriel, however, was reluctant. He slowly began jogging but began feeling ill. "Yeah! Come on, kid! Faster!"

"YOU CAN DO IT, HUMAN! JUST IMAGINE UNDYNE CHASING YOU!"

Frisk sped up, as they were cheered on, looking over to Asriel to see how he was doing. 

Not so good.

He wasn't even going that fast and he was already panting, his tongue hanging out as he desperately gasped for air. Eventually, his steps slowed to a halt.

 _Oh no! I forgot  about what Alphys said! How could I be so stupid???_ Frisk punished themselves then hopped off the treadmill and went over to Asriel.

"Hey, you can stop if you don't feel so good," they said worriedly. Asriel looked intensely worn out, colour drained from their fur and sweat building up on their forehead.

"What is the meaning of this? You-" Frisk looked at Undyne with a fierce frown that let her know to stay out of it.

"Y-Yeah... I need to lie down, Frisk." They grabbed his hand and helped him off the treadmill before slinging their arm around his shoulder and carefully helping him walk over to a bench against the wall.

"I'm sorry, kid..." She felt immensely guilty.

Asriel laid down on the bench with Frisk sitting on the floor beside them.

"Az? I'm sorry... We should've stopped you..." said Chara remorsefully.

"I SHALL GO GET HIM A GLASS OF WATER!"

"I-I'm okay, guys... I just need to lie..." His eyes closed, and he passed out.

"Damnit, Undyne! Kid, I'm so sorry, I didn't know... I should've known, but..." She was panicking. Asgore would  _murder_... well not murder, but he would never speak to her again if anything happened. She'd be kicked out of the Royal Guard and banished from New New Home, that's for sure.

"It's okay, he just needs to lie down." Papyrus burst into the room valiantly holding a cup of water, rushing over to the scene.

"I HAVE ACQUIRED THE WATER!"

"Shhh, Papyrus. He needs to rest," said Undyne.

They stood around him, worried. Frisk was instinctively rubbing his brother's head, and Undyne just stared down in guilt. Papyrus left the glass of water beside him.

"Maybe we should take him upstairs?"

"Yeah. I'll carry him to the spare bedroom." Undyne gently picked him up and carried him to the bedroom Frisk and Asriel woke up in, with Papyrus following closely holding the glass of water. "Papyrus, can you go get Alphys?" Papyrus raced off, and Undyne carefully set Asriel upon the bed close enough to the wall so Frisk could sit down with him.

Alphys entered the room panicking, holding that same laser gun thing she used to test Asriel's soul power. Papyrus followed carrying a small television screen which he set down on the floor. She hastily hooked it up and immediately began probing the child's chest with it. The line on the monitor peaked up, then started flickering slightly. It looked disjointed and rough. Alphys watched the screen carefully for a moment. "H-h-he should be f-fine," she awkwardly stuttered, dreading to think how Asgore and Toriel would react if their son were to die again. "He needs to rest. His s-soul isn't... isn't that w-weak, it should be able to recover..."

"Alright," she said sombrely. "C'mon Papyrus, let's go. Frisk?"

Frisk shook their head and pointed towards Asriel, gesturing to stay with him at the request of Chara.

"Okay," she said with a hint of understanding in her voice. "Let us know if you need anything, alright?" Frisk nodded, watching their friends leave. They noticed Undyne felt really guilty, and Papyrus and Alphys looked really worried when they left.

_I can't lose him again, Frisk..._

_He's not gonna die, Chara!_  thought Frisk incredulously. They lay down next to Asriel, who was fast asleep. He was breathing slowly and wasn't snoring like he usually does.

They pulled the blankets over each other and Chara wrapped an arm around their brother. Despite looking rather unhealthy, he was still as soft as a pillow.

_Why did we let him do it? Alphys said he shouldn't do stuff like that..._

_It was an accident,_ they reassured.  _We should've stopped him... But he's going to be fine._

* * *

 

 

Asriel woke up for a brief moment.

 _Yes_ , _little anomaly. Die. Die like you were meant to._ A voice quietly told him in his head before he went fully unconscious. 


	11. Chapter 11

When Frisk woke up, Asriel was still asleep. He wasn't lying in the same position either which was a good sign, and he looked a lot less drained than before. He was also still wearing one of Frisk's sweaters. They looked around and noticed Alphys was in the corner, closely monitoring a screen beside Undyne. The screen had to be placed down on the floor as the room was rather void of furniture.

"H-He's looking b-better... You can see here," she said as she pointed to a region on the screen where the oscillating line had flattened out. Undyne didn't quite understand exactly what that represetned, but nodded anyway. "H-his soul power is... stabilizing. I-In fact, he should be up soon..."

They stood up and stretched noting that Chara was still asleep, making an audible yawning sound to alert Alphys that they were up.

"O-Oh, Hi, Frisk." Frisk greeted the two with a bright smile. Undyne did her best to reciprocate with a wide grin. "U-Umm... Toriel and A-Asgore are d-downstairs... They're fine, I explained e-everything..." Frisk nodded, and turned around to face Asriel. He must've been disturbed slightly by them, as he'd rolled over slightly and was drooling onto the pillow. 

Frisk felt a slimy hand softly grab their shoulder. "Looks like you're gonna have to go twice as hard to make up for him next time, huh?" They looked up at Undyne as she bared all of her huge teeth, and tried to do the same. "Fuhuhu! That's so sweet. You're missing a tooth, anyways! But... kid, I know I should be telling him this and not you, but... I'm really sorry."

"Don't worry, he's gonna be fine!" Frisk's enthusiasm was enough to convince her, and she ruffled their hair in response. "I'm gonna go downstairs." Alphys nodded and Undyne gave a thumbs up.

Downstairs, Frisk observed Asgore and Toriel laughing heartily at something at the dinner table, holding something while Sans sat across from them.

"it's priceless, isn't it?"

"Truly!" Asgore bellowed. Toriel had a huge smile across her face. Frisk peered over the banister to see what they were looking at but they weren't tall enough to see over it, so they had to run downstairs.

"heh. hey, frisk." Sans winked.

"Hello, my child!" Toriel said, giggling at them.

"Ah, Frisk! Come here, we have something to show you!" Asgore gestured to the space between him and Toriel.

Frisk scurried over to see what they were laughing about, still needing to tip toe to see over the dinner table. Toriel held up a small photo frame so that Frisk could get a better look. In front of their eyes was a photo of them fast asleep atop a bed of golden flowers with Asriel tightly wrapped around them. Everyone smiled expecting a cute reaction, but they blushed deeply and looked at Sans with a grimace.

"hey, no need to be peachy about it. you worked yourself...  _down to the bone_ for this, didn't you?" Toriel began laughing as Asgore raised an eyebrow at Sans before looking down at Frisk, who began blushing even harder. Suddenly, Undyne came crashing down the stairs having heard Asgore's thundering laugh.

"Hey! What's so funny!"

"Here, Undyne!" Toriel held up the framed photo as Undyne came closer to inspect it. Slowly, a toothy grin spread across her face. "Isn't it precious?"

"Frisk, ya cutie!" She pinched their cheeks and moved them up and down a bit, which was rather painful and only amplified their intense blushing. "That's adorable! And you also look like a total sissy!" Frisk frowned and folded their arms in embarrassment. "Where's Papyrus? He's gotta see this!"

"across the road. i'll make sure he sees it," said Sans as he winked at Frisk.

"Frisk, dear, you should take this to Asriel! He'll be delighted to see it once he feels better," said Toriel. She was still grinning over the photo, seemingly not upset about her son's condition. Undyne, however, looked down to the floor and awkwardly rubbed the back of her head. Noticing this, Asgore rose from his seat which creaked in relief, and put a hand on her shoulder.

"Please," he said as quietly as he could manage. "Do not be so upset over what happened. You only wanted our son to have an enjoyable time. Alphys has said that he will be alright." Toriel and Frisk both nodded in agreement.

"...Yeah. You're right," she said, noticing Alphys as a method of breaking away from Asgore. "Oh, hey, Alphys!"

"H-Hi," she stuttered as she came down the stairs looking a lot less anxious than before. "H-He's awake now."

The Dreemurr family smiled in delight and Undyne looked somewhat relieved. She found it strange how the Dreemurrs were so mellow and forbearing. Without hesitation, Frisk ran upstairs with Toriel and Asgore close behind holding the framed photo.

* * *

As soon as they noticed Asriel was awake, Frisk hopped onto the bed beside him and squeezed him in a tight hug. The two boss monsters looked at each other, smiling. The sight of their two children alive and well was still so surreal and one of the few things Toriel and Asgore could agree upon.

"My child! You are awake! Are you feeling well?" Toriel bent down and placed a hand over her son's forehead, preventing him from nodding in response. Asgore towered beside her. To Asriel, who was only about four feet off the ground right now, his father appeared as a skyscraper. "I notice you are wearing Frisk's sweater!" She and Asgore smiled.

"Son... You must remember what Alphys told you," said Asgore softly. "If you ever feel like you need to stop... No matter what it is that you are doing, please, let us know." Asriel nodded gently, still feeling rather tired. Asgore wanted to add something about how pained he would be if his son were to perish again, but could he could not bear to think about it; Asriel's death was the worst thing that ever happened to him.

Toriel nodded in agreement. "Also... We have something we'd like to show you!" She handed the small wooden frame to Frisk, who resisted feeling embarrassed for the sake of their brother. Besides, Sans was right. The photograph was a picturesque representation of what they'd wanted for so long. Frisk lay closely beside their brother and held it up so he could see. Almost immediately, Asriel's face was flushed over by a bright redness as he attempted to hold back a grin. 

"We will have to print several copies of this," said Asgore. "I hope you two aren't feeling embarrassed by it."

"I certainly hope not," added Toriel. "Because your father and I will treasure this photo for the rest of our lives!" Frisk handed the precious photograph back to their mother, who looked at it once more. "Seeing as you do not look so good... We will meet you two at home, okay? Alphys is here if you begin to feel sick." Asriel raised an eyebrow, before Toriel bent down and hugged the two children. "Asriel... I am so sorry I cannot take care of you for now. You may have to stay here for a while longer. But Alphys knows a lot more than I when it comes to souls. Frisk can stay with you, if you'd like." They both nodded.

"Goodbye, my children."

"See you soon," said Asgore.

As soon as their parents left, Asriel rolled over to face Frisk before they could say anything.

"Frisk... I... When I was asleep..." He began sniffling.

"Did you have a nightmare?" Frisk asked anxiously.

"I... I don't know..." He looked very scared and upset.

"What happened?" They remembered that Chara also had a nightmare last night that resulted in a horrible homicidal sensation, and didn't sleep then because of it so he'd now been asleep the entire day.

"S-Something..." He was sobbing now, and Frisk had to squeeze him tightly so he wouldn't start bawling. "S-Something t-told me to... d-d-die!"

 _That sounds like Chara's nightmare,_ they thought. Frisk didn't say anything for a while, just continued comforting Asriel. Alphys would come back in soon to check his soul again, so they didn't want his sobbing to get any worse.

 _My what?_ Apparently, Chara was awake. Frisk found it slightly annoying that Chara was listening without telling them. 

_How long have you been awake?_

_Like, 2 minutes. Why is Az crying?_ Chara instinctively let himself squeeze his brother. 

 _He had a nightmare when he fell asleep._ Normally Chara would laugh at him and call him a crybaby, but ever since he came back Chara has been a lot more protective of him. He even said that if anyone picks on him when they start school that he'd personally murder them. Part of Frisk thought that this was because Chara kept blaming himself for what happened when his brother died.

_What happened in it?_

_He said something was telling him to die._  A feeling of dread hung over Chara. He'd kill whoever it was if he found out.  _Do you wanna talk to him?_ Frisk gladly stepped out for a bit.

"Az?"

"F-Frisk?"

"No, Chara," he said with a reassuring smile. "Frisk said you had a nightmare."

"Y-Yeah... I-It was n-nothing..." He rubbed his eyes and sniffled again.

"I had a similar one last night... when I woke you up." Asriel's eyes widened. "Frisk thinks we should ask Sans about them."

"W-Why? They were just nightmares..."

"Frisk thinks it's something else."

"W-What is it?"

 _"_ I think Sans will be able to explain it a bit better..." Chara couldn't exactly remember what Sans had said, but Frisk thought it was related to the anomaly he'd been talking about.

"Okay..."

Chara pulled out of the hug so he could stand up and stretch. He cracked a few of his joints and yawned before noticing an object in their pocket. His heart locket was still inside, and he carefully put it around his neck. 

"Frisk, you know..." Frisk anticipated for Chara to say something poignant and got ready to comfort them. "If this is still in our pocket, that means we haven't changed our clothes in a while..." He heard a small giggle from behind him. "Frisk, that's disgusting!" scowled Chara jokingly.

"It's not like you're the one wearing them!" they protested. Usually they would only talk to each other out loud if they were alone, but Asriel seemed to find the conversation funny so Chara insisted on voicing his thoughts.

"I am now, and I hate it!"

"Ugh, fine! We'll have a bath later or something," they said bemusedly. The first time Frisk returned to the surface with Toriel they found it awkward having Chara with them as they bathed, but that was silly because it wasn't like he could look away or anything. Chara sat back down on the bed for a bit.

"Hey, Chara..."

"Yeah?"

"Do Mom and Dad know you're here?"

He pouted for a bit. "No. Only you and Sans know."

"Will you tell them?" He looked up expectantly at his brother. "You only ever talk when we're alone... Or when you're pretending to be Frisk..." 

"I... I don't know. It'll be weird, since I don't have my own body." He pulled the locket out from beneath the collar of his sweater and opened it, revealing the photo of him. His body was of similar - almost identical - build to Frisk's, however his skin was slightly paler and his eyes were a tad wider. He wondered if his old body was still intact. His organs were probably severely damaged from buttercup poisoning, and he'd probably... decomposed by now. He shuddered at the image. "Besides... It's nice being able to just... zone out and let someone else do all the talking for you." 

Before Asriel could interject, Alphys came in.

"H-Hi, Frisk. H-Hey, Asriel." She gave a small wave. Chara gave a thumbs up, which resulted in a strange expression from the scaly scientist.

"Hi!"

"U-Um... I just need to d-do one more test. A-And if it's good, you can g-go home." She picked up the laser gun (she called it a soul radar, but Asriel was adamant that it was a laser gun,) and poked it at Asriel's chest. It made his heart feel funny somehow. Alphys squinted at the monitor in the corner and sighed with relief; the white line across it was perfectly flat and stable. "T-That was quick... W-Well, you're good to go..."

"Yay!" He squealed. "Hey, Alphys," he said quietly.

"Y-Yes?"

"Thank you for fixing me!" He grinned to reveal his tiny fangs.

Alphys smiled. She thought Asriel was adorable; Frisk had overheard her refer to him as "Kawaii" a few times. They weren't sure what that meant.

"I-It was n-nothing... A-Anyway, U-Undyne had something she w-wanted to tell you, Asriel..." 

Asriel slowly climbed out of bed, as Alphys gestured for them to follow her downstairs. Chara watched her closely out of habit.

_Do you want it back?_

_Want what back?_ Chara could feel Frisk's confusion.

_Your body?_

_Oh. No, you can stay in it if you want._

Chara followed them downstairs. Everyone had departed besides Undyne, who was sitting on the couch watching a wrestling program while roaring in delight whenever one of the wrestlers was slammed through a table or off one of the top ropes.

"U-Undyne! Asriel is b-better!" The woman snapped around with a toothy grin spread wide across her face.

"Dorks!" She stood up and walked over to Asriel. "Hey, kid. I never got to apologize... so now I am!" She attempted to ruffle the goat child's hair, but he didn't really have any that was distinguishable from his fur so the attempt was in vain. "Uhh... But really. I'm sorry. Guess Frisk is gonna have to work twice as hard, huh?" Asriel looked at Chara, wanting to let her know that it wasn't Frisk she was talking to but he shook their head slightly. "By the way... Since you two are Asgore's children... I'm kinda sworn by honor to protect you guys! Isn't that great? The second strongest monster alive is your personal bodyguard!" She grinned full force and entered a flexing pose. Alphys looked at her with marvel. Asriel and Frisk were delighted at the thought of having a personal bodyguard, but Chara wasn't convinced.

_Heh, I've killed her before. Twice. She's nothing._

_Chara!_ Frisk scolded.  _And that's not true. She killed you way more times than you killed her..._ They felt uncomfortable discussing the death of someone standing directly infront of them. Thankfully, Chara dropped the subject.

"So... If anyone picks on either of you..." She began frowning intensely and formed a magical spear in her hand. "I'll destroy them!" She launched the spear into the wall, tearing through a cooking poster. "Fuhuhu!"

"U-Undyne, th-there's a hole in the wall, now..."

"Asgore's problem!"

"Isn't that... R-rude?" Alphys said, noticing Frisk and Asriel were slowly moving closer to the door.

"What? Rude? He fixed my house after it burned down, didn't he dork?" She looked over at Frisk - Chara - who simply nodded.

"NGAHHH! I'm not rude!" She hurled another spear through the wall, slightly above and to the left where the last one penetrated. Alphys gestured for the two children to leave. As they stepped outside, they heard a thunderous crash from indoors.

"Undyne's really... energetic, isn't she?"

"Yeah..."

The sun was setting outside. The sky was streaked with yellow and orange. They stared at the sunset for a while.

"Hey, Az..." Chara reached out and grabbed Asriel's hand.

"Chara?"

"The sun is setting," he said sombrely. "And we're all alive to see it this time."

"Y-Yeah." 

* * *

 

Papyrus had somehow convinced Toriel to allow him to cook spaghetti for dinner. Toriel didn't think there was anything necessarily wrong with his spaghetti when it was a success, but a lot of his attempts often ended in disaster. Spaghetti had previously melted all over the floor, and even burst into flames at one point. This time, however, his spaghetti actually seemed edible. He served equal amounts out around the table. The two children were beside each other on one side, the two skeleton brothers on the other, and Toriel at one of the ends.

"IT IS AN HONOR TO PREPARE A MEAL FOR THE ROYAL SIBLINGS!" Papyrus exclaimed. "FORGED IN THE PRESTIGIOUS FLAMES OF PAPYRUS'S GREAT FURNACE; I-"

"i've got a  _bone_ to pick with you, bro. by furnace you mean tori's fire magic, right?" Everyone but Papyrus was chuckling.

"SANS... AS IF A DREADFUL PUN WASN'T ENOUGH, YOU HAD TO EMBARRASS ME INFRONT OF ROYALTY?"

"hey, don't let it get through your _skull._ i'm only _pulling your femur._ "

"UGH! LET US ENJOY THE SPAGHETTI!" Papyrus plunged his fork into the spaghetti and immediately began eating. It appeared a lot more edible than other batches he'd made and stockpiled in the fridge, so Frisk and Asriel did the same. Toriel and Sans ate theirs at a regular pace. Chara had backed out, refusing to taste it.

"Frisk, dear. You and Asriel will have to stay close together to ensure nothing happens to him again. I have plans to start a school soon!"

"tori, those kids are inseperable anyway. always huggin' each other and holding hands. they won't let anything happen to each other." As Sans expected, the two children recoiled in embarrassment with an anticipated level of blushing.

Toriel couldn't help but chuckle at the thought of that photo of them atop the flowers. "That is true, Sans. They love each other very much."

"SANS, PLEASE DO NOT EMBARRASS THE CHILDREN!"

"heh, alright. i'll have to show you that photo in the morning, bro." Sans winked at Frisk. Clearly he was enjoying seeing how flustered they got. "so, tori, you plan to start a school?"

"Yes! I have a curriculum sorted out, all I need is to sort out some more paperwork." She looked over to the children. "You two should be starting sometime next month, if not earlier." Asriel had never been to school - he was homeschooled with Chara - and Frisk couldn't remember what school was like.

"UNDYNE COULD ACCOMPANY THEM AT SCHOOL! FROM WHAT I'VE HEARD, SCHOOL IS A LONG AND TORTUROUS EXPERIENCE FULL OF RATHER NASTY INDIVIDUALS! UNDYNE COULD DESTROY THEM!"

"Papyrus, Undyne is too old to go to school."

It wasn't long before they had both finished their bowls. Sans's spaghetti had disappeared somehow, but he certainly did not eat it. Toriel insisted she wasn't hungry which was convincing enough for Papyrus. After they'd all finished their food, Sans went up to their room with Frisk and Asriel while Papyrus stayed behind to clean up. Frisk asked Toriel if they could have a quick word with Sans before bed, and she agreed without prying too much, although Toriel had taken notice they'd been wearing the same clothes despite all the sweaters in their wardrobe looking identical and demanded they take a bath as a compromise.

"yeah, i got time. maybe too much time. what's up?"

"Asriel and Chara have been having nightmares." Sans shrugged.

"they must be pretty...  _bone-chilling_ if you have to tell me about them." Asriel looked confused.

"Sans, do you always make bad jokes?" He said.

"puns are my forte. the _marrow_ of my perfomances." He winked. "anyway, why are you telling me? surely you two can just start cuddling each other and it's all better, right?" He chuckled. Asriel buried his face in his palms and Frisk started blushing. Sans thought their reactions were even better than Papyrus's after being told a few bad skeleton puns. "alright. i'll stop. for now. heh. alright, so what's so bad about them that you have to come to me?" Frisk steeled themselves and hoped for no more embarrassing references to their relationship with their brother.

"In the dreams a voice tells them... bad stuff." Asriel began looking a little anxious.

"like what?"

"It told Chara that he should be dead... and it was telling Asriel to die in his sleep." Sans looked puzzled for a moment. Normally he would've just told the kids they're paranoid and need to go hug it out some more, but it seemed to pertain to his theories about the timeline anomaly. He was also considering telling Frisk that the first half was sort of true, but that was rather disrespectful.

"hmm... how did the voice sound?"

Frisk looked at Asriel, who just shrugged.

_It sounded like his. Except it was distorted and really deep._

"Chara says it was like yours... but really distorted and deeper." Sans flinched a bit.

"well... alphys and i were thinking the anomaly was the old royal scientist. i told you about him, didn't i? gaster?" Frisk nodded. "no one really knows that much about him. we've heard samples of his voice through audio logs, and alphys did comment that it sounded like mine. minus the distortion, of course."

"Anomaly?" Said Asriel, looking confused as ever.

"yeah. bringing you back from the dead caused the timeline to... shuffle around a bit, i guess. now, as for how to fix this, i have no idea. gaster obviously isn't happy with you - asriel and chara - being around, but i'd have no idea why. you guys shouldn't be affecting him or anything." They heard Toriel's voice coming from downstairs. "hmm... looks like tori wants you two in bed now. i'll talk to alphys about figuring out how to contact him"

"Frisk? Asriel?" She called out.

"you two better go. see yas tomorrow. i hear sansy has different dialogue if you sleep first." At least he was hinting at Frisk's time travelling, and not them and Asriel.

Frisk nodded, but was dissatisfied with the conversation.  _He didn't take it very seriously,_ they thought.

 _Yeah. I hope it doesn't happen tonight. I'll kill this Gaster guy, if only he shows himself and-_ he was cut off by a mental slap from Frisk.

"There you two are! Frisk, my child, it is time for a bath. Asriel, you can have one in the morning." Asriel turned and made a taunting face at Frisk, who poked their tongue out in response. Asriel did not retaliate, so Frisk considered themselves the winner.

Frisk entered the bathroom, of which Toriel had taken the liberty of filling up the bathtub beforehand. The water was heated nicely with fire magic. 

"Do not stay in the water for too long, alright? There are clean clothes over there. I am going to bed now. Goodnight." She kissed Frisk on the forehead, then Asriel on the way out before closing the door behind her. Frisk put their current clothes lazily on the floor and the heart locket besides the sink before hopping in. It was really relaxing, probably due to Toriel's magic.

"Frisk, when WAS the last time we washed ourselves?" Chara said out loud, making sure Asriel could hear. He was waiting for Frisk to finish for some reason.

"It doesn't matter, we're doing it now!" Asriel began giggling.

Frisk finished washing themselves until Chara was satisfied - they weren't quite sure why he was so upset about being dirty - then dried themselves off before putting on their clean clothes as well as the heart locket.

"Asriel, why aren't you in bed?" They noticed Asriel was still sitting on the edge of their bed.

"I-I was gonna ask you... And Chara... U-Umm..." He began blushing slightly, and tugging at the hem of his blue and purple sweater. "B-Because we, umm..." 

 _He's gonna ask us to sleep in the same bed as him in case we have nightmares._ Chara had experience with this before, and agreed to it then purely on the basis that Asriel was so  _soft._ His body was squishy like a pillow and his fur was softer than a bed of feathers that had been gently blessed with fabric softener. This time, though, he considered it also on the basis that he'd probably have a nightmare too. _I don't mind._ Frisk wouldn't mind sleeping with a living stuffed animal, either.

"W-We might..." Although his stuttering was adorable, Frisk would be here for a long time if they waited for him to finish.

"Okay, Asriel," they said with a smile. He looked up with relief and his trademark blush began to fade. "Move over."

Frisk turned off the lamp and jumped in the bed with Asriel. They were both quite small and although there was plenty of space in the bed for one, they couldn't help but start cuddling each other. After a few moments of shuffling and adjusting the blankets, they found a comfortable position with their arms wrapped around each other. Chara wouldn't admit he was worried about having nightmares, so he pulled the embrace tighter instead. The two human children felt themselves melting under the softness of Asriel's fur. Asriel somehow seemed to be enjoying the hug more than they were, however.

"If Sans sees this, we won't hear the end of it..." said Chara. Asriel dreaded Sans coming in while they were still asleep for whatever reason, and then taking another photo. "How does he even know, anyway? It's not like he's around us all the time... Also, by the way, Az... If I have a nightmare, just relax, okay? If you move I might hit you." He snickered.

"O-Okay, Chara." Asriel didn't pick up on the sarcastic tone. "We should do this more..." he said. Frisk could  _hear_ the blushing.

"That doesn't sound bad... this is really comfortable." They both grinned. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight, guys."

A faint, distorted sound permeated between the walls as they fell asleep together. 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for the cutesy stuff at the end. I just couldn't help it.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, I was lying at the end of the last chapter. I absolutely am not sorry for the cute stuff.

_"How_ _peculiar,"_ something murmured to him. Its voice was very deep.  _"Why did Alphys even bother with you?"_

Asriel stirred awake, but couldn't move. The first things he looked for were Chara and Frisk... who thankfully were still closely beside him. Something dark and shapeless rose up from the shadows behind his sibling. It was too dark to distinguish any features.

 _"A synthetic soul..."_ it said, inching closer to him. Asriel tried to let out a noise, something,  _anything_ as his soul slowly emerged from his chest, but nothing happened. The black entity leaned close enough to see it.  _"Hmm... Alphys has done a poor job, hasn't she?"_ the formless being paused for a moment.  _"I could... take this soul, and crush it right now. Your defiant timeline harlequinades would end here. I'd no longer have to suffer at the hands of your continued existence..."_ The terror was too much for him. Silent tears gushed from his eyes as he tried his hardest to scream.  _"But Alphys's knowledge is insufficient. Your soul will destroy itself in time."_

Everything froze for a moment, and the shifting shadows disappeared. His soul sank back into his chest.

Upon realizing he could move, he crushed Frisk as hard as he could and stifled a scream against their chest. They woke up in an instant with no idea what to do about the hysterical sobbing.

 _Let me,_ said Chara. He sounded scared, as if he'd just had a nightmare too. They didn't question as he began gently rubbing the top of his brother's head like he always used to, soothing their shuddering. He didn't mind the snot and tears that were now soaking their sweater. _If he's ever upset, just rub his head._ They giggled.  _Frisk..._

_What's wrong?_

_I don't think that was a normal bad dream._ He continued to gently rub Asriel's head. It was ridiculously soft. Toriel used to hum a tune whenever Asriel had nightmares and couldn't fall asleep again, but he'd long since forgotten it.

_How come?_

_I had the same one. Something tried to take his soul and we both couldn't move._ Frisk was concerned. It was obviously Gaster.  _That Gaster piece of shit -_

_Chara, stop!_

_What? It's not like I swore out loud,_ he blurted incredulously. Chara was probably upset about Gaster, which would explain his sudden swearing. Frisk would have to make him a swear jar if he was ever going to reveal his presence to everybody, but that wasn't the only thing they were annoyed by.

 _You were gonna say something murdery and I don't want to hear it._ Although it was unlike Frisk to be so admonishing, Chara's sinister tangents could quickly take a turn for the worst if they didn't say anything in time. Asriel's shuddering had stopped, which was enough for Chara to drop the topic. A light snore indicated that he had fallen asleep.  _So... What did Gaster say?_

Frisk felt him wince. _He said something like how Alphys is shit-_ They pinched themselves.  _Okay, sheesh! - not so good at making souls. And that his soul would destroy itself sometime because of it._ Frisk wouldn't be able to sleep after hearing that. Was Gaster lying? Would Asriel's soul really just shatter any moment? They'd have to do this all over again, and-  _Please don't worry about it. I'm sure, uhh.. Sans will know what to do._ Chara didn't feel Frisk's train of thought slowing down and they probably weren't going to fall asleep for a while, so he decided to talk to them for a bit to try and take their mind off of what Gaster said.

 _Speaking of Sans, he's a lot tougher than he looks, huh? Even after thirty tries, I still couldn't.._ Frisk shook their head, but appreciated the attempt.

_Chara, I'm not interested in talking about killing people!_

_Oh. Fair enough._ Chara brainstormed some conversation topics.  _Hey, you remember when we fought Az and he turned into that thing with the wings? The Absolute God of Hyperdeath?_ Frisk nodded.  _That was based off a drawing he made ages ago. He told me that if I called him a crybaby again that he'd transform into it and blow me up with rainbow lightning and exploding stars._ _I never thought it'd actually happen._ That shot at a conversation earned a grin from Frisk. They thought Chara was really cool when they weren't being so quiet and secretive.  _Umm... Anyway, Frisk. I can't think of anything else to talk about._   _Just like you and that dummy back at the ruins._ _Goodnight._

 _Goodnight. I love you,_ they replied. Chara seemed sheepish but the words sent him to sleep; it was almost as if they said them on purpose. Frisk was going to stay up for a bit in case anything happened to either of them.

 

* * *

 

Sans postponed his morning routine - consisting of cracking bones and anonymously terrorizing his brother's various social media pages - to check on Frisk. He knew of everything that happened last night, a strange voice and the distinct sensation of a soul laying out in the open. Immediately, he allowed himself to take a shortcut into their room. The entity - almost certainly Gaster - disappeared spontaneously as the hovering soul slipped back into its owner's chest.. Doing that had taken up a large amount of his energy, so he just returned to bed. 

He knocked on the door rather than just appearing inside of their room. He chuckled at how bashful they would act if they knew he saw what they were doing even though it was perfectly reasonable. "you two up yet?"

After a while, the door opened in response and Frisk gestured for him to enter as they took a deep breath and prepared to tell him everything. Asriel was sitting shyly on the edge of his bed.

"yeah, yeah. i know." The two children both stared at him in confusion. "yep. anyway... you're probably worried about what he said. about his soul." He looked over to Asriel, who was just sitting there with his eyebrow raised. "he's probably right. alphys knows a lot, but isn't a perfectionist. so... we'll have to go over to hers again to sort it out."

"Umm..." Frisk was at a loss for words. Sans just seemed to know _everything_. "Okay. But... How do you know what happened before I said anything?" His straightforwardness about the topic didn't do much to satisfy their puzzled expressions.

"uh, i heard some weird sounds last night. so i came in, and it was none other than gaster himself. weird, huh? luckily, he disappeared instantly." Frisk just shrugged and accepted it. Sans knew a lot of things they had no idea how. "also... do you two still need that bed over there? it must've felt rather _bonely_ last night," he chortled with a smirk, eagerly awaiting the chagrin of the two children. No matter the seriousness of a situation, he would never stop being a joker.

"Ugh! Okay, we'll talk to Alphys later!" Sans watched Asriel grin slightly before putting his face into his hands, and Frisk turned around before he could see much, but he was glad they no longer seemed to be feeling apprehensive. Satisfied, he nodded and blinked out of the room.

 _I don't blame him,_ jested Chara.  _You look funny when you're embarrassed._ They frowned.

Asriel's blush had not yet faded, but he seemed worried. "Frisk..."

"We'll go see Alphys after breakfast, alright?" they affirmed hopefully. He nodded, and hopped off the bed.

Downstairs, Papyrus and Undyne were sitting down eating cereal. Surprisingly, there was no spaghetti in sight. They were dressed in athletic outfits, and were probably about to undergo some intense exercise. "Hey, punks!" Undyne heartily slammed the table with her fist, sending a few fruit loops and splats of milk scattering across the room.

"YOUR MAJESTIES!" 

Asriel flinched at their rowdiness. "Where's Mom?" 

"Toriel? She's next door with Asgore talking about some dumb politics shit that nobody-"

"UNDYNE!" Papyrus looked genuinely shocked. "THERE IS NO NEED FOR SUCH LANGUAGE AROUND ROYALTY!"

"Geez, I'm sorry!"

 _Now you know how I feel,_ groaned Chara.

"THE KING AND QUEEN ARE DISCUSSING POLITICAL MATTERS REGARDING... SOMETHING I DON'T REMEMBER. BUT IT IS SURELY VERY IMPORTANT!" 

Frisk nodded and opened the cupboard and scanned for cereal. "Which one do you want, Az?"

"Umm... I'll have what you have." 

 _Pick that one!_ Chara used Frisk's arm to grab a box with the words "Chocolate Puffs" on the front. Frisk decided to let him eat the cereal. He pulled two bowls out from another cupboard and the milk from the fridge, then poured the contents of both into the bowls before setting them on the table. They sat quietly, eating their cereal until Undyne got sick of the peaceful atmosphere and slammed her elbow down on the wooden surface.

"UNDYNE, NO ELBOWS ON THE TABLE!" He seemed genuinely shocked by Undyne's behaviour.

"Papyrus! Arm wrestle! NOW!" she screamed with a huge grin across her face.

"WELL, IF YOU INSIST." Papyrus stood his bony elbow upon the table and grabbed Undyne's hand. It was sort of slimy, and it kept getting pinched between his metacarpals.

"Three... Two... One..." She bared all of her teeth. "GO!" Undyne's arm bulged to an insane size as she attempted to bring down Papyrus's arm with all her might, but it didn't even budge. "NGAHHHH!" She roared, and jerked as hard as she could. Abruptly, the skeleton's arm popped out of its socket and went flying onto the floor. "I WIN! FUHUHU!"

"YOU HAVE BESTED ME, IT SEEMS," he confessed. "BUT NOT WITHOUT CHEATING! PULLING OUT MY ARM? SERIOUSLY!" He re-attached his arm into the socket as it made a satisfying pop sound.

"Me? Cheating? You were so using magic! Your arm wasn't even moving!" Papyrus did not dispute this claim. "We'll see who's the best when we start training!" Before he could even respond with a gesture, she grabbed him by the other arm and yanked him out of his seat almost hard enough to cause another dislocation. "Sorry, sissies!" she gloated at Frisk and Asriel. "Alphy says you can't play with the big kids anymore!" She grinned at the two children and raced out of the door, dragging Papyrus behind her. They all enjoyed the quiet for a bit.

"Hey..."

"Hmm?" Chara bubbled through a mouthful of cereal.

"Thanks... for last night. I was really scared."

"Any time," he smiled, revealing chunks of cereal stuck to his teeth. "Howcome you like it so much when I rub your head?" Asriel's cheeks went slightly red as he shrugged, not seeming too happy about something. "Anyway... are you finished?" He nodded.

"Chara..." He looked at his brother with a melancholic expression. Puppy eyes, he'd call it. "...I don't like how I only get to talk to you when we're alone," he muttered as he extended his hand out on top of the table. Chara's complacent mood quickly turned into glum despondence as he squeezed the soft paw. He wished he could show himself, even if just around Asgore and Toriel, but.. but what? "Can you at least... think about telling Mom and Dad you're here? Just them? That way, we can..."

"I'll think about it. By myself," he surrendered, earning a bright fang-revealing grin from his brother. "In the meantime... We need to fix your soul problem. Frisk?" He handed their body back over to Frisk, who pulled out their phone.

"Okay. Frisk, what are you doing?"

"Calling Sans."

"Why?"

"I'm too tired to walk across the road." Asriel giggled.

As soon as Frisk hit the call button, Sans appeared across from them in an instant. His phone was ringing loudly but he was too lazy to switch it off so he opened up a shortcut next to him and tossed the phone through. Frisk could still hear the distant ringing sound. Sans must have thrown it into his room.

"quick, huh? what's up?" Frisk simply pointed at Asriel with their free hand. "holding hands now, eh? man, you kids are so saccharine." Frisk reflexively pulled their hand away. "geez... relax. i'm just giving you a hard time." He winked, and both of their faces turned bright red. This was definitely better than Papyrus getting mad over bone puns. "so... about that soul thing. alphys said she can sort it out rather easily, but it's quite a trek to her place so... stand here." He pointed to an empty space next to him, and they stepped within its vicinity. The floor beneath their feet spontaneously changed colour from a bluish off-white to a light yellow.

"AH! S-Sans, why???" Alphys dropped a clipboard on the floor. "C-Could you do that without s-scaring me!?"

"well, if i could somehow warn you that i was about to appear out of thin air, i definitely would."

"S-Sans, you really need to explain h-how you do that." Sans constantly tormented Alphys by refusing to offer insight as to how he teleported all over the place.

"i do it... very abruptly."

"Ugh. M-Maybe some other time." Alphys turned to Asriel. "S-So, how are you feeling?"

"Good," he said.

"Th-That's g-good. N-Now... S-Sans told me all about G-Gaster... And, umm... I think..." She took a moment to compose herself. Sans just stood there with his hands in his pockets. "Sorry. Gaster... If that was him, is t-totally right. The soul I made for you, its d-determination, specifically... Is umm... fully synthetic. I-It's the first of it's kind, and it could potentially be... unstable. At any moment, it could..." She stopped when she noticed Asriel and Frisk trembling. "...yeah. But... I d-devised a solution. Since your soul might not survive on its own d-determination... I can tether it to Frisk's soul." Asriel turned to Frisk, who just smiled at them.

"heh." Alphys looked at Sans strangely. "sorry. carry on."

"...Right. A-Anyway... C-Conveniently, I have a m-machine that does just that. I h-haven't tested it... I've been working on a way to contact Gaster. But it should be fine, it's rather simple. Follow me." She walked over to the corner of her lab and crouched down beside a small box. She pulled out two helmets connected by wires at the top, and plugged them in to a monitor. "Just put them on..." 

_He looks funny with that thing on._

"B-Before I do this... U-Umm... S-Since Asriel's soul will be using your d-determination instead of my synthetic stuff... You two will have to, umm, stay within a... fifteen meter radius of each other at all t-times... M-Maybe for the rest of your l-lives... I-Is that okay? I-If not... I c-can think of something e-else..." The two children turned to each other and grinned in response to what was definitely meant to be bad news.

"oh man. not a problem," the skeleton chuckled to himself. Frisk knew what he was going to say, and he was totally right. They didn't plan to leave Asriel's side at all; this would make little to no difference in their lives. He'd still need a lot of help getting over what he did as Flowey, despite trying to forget it all. Alphys flipped a switch before sparks flew from the top of the helmets and the two - three children were engulfed in a strange feeling. The wire connecting the two helmets glowed white-hot, before flashing red and cooling down.

"That was... U-Unspectacular... and anticlimactic." Alphys frowned, and looked down at the monitor. "Jeez... Frisk, your soul is... really strong." They nodded in agreement. "A-Anyway... Th-that should solve any issues... You two will need to stay near each other... all the time. I-If you become separated... A-Asriel's soul still has its own synthetic determination, b-but that's not very stable. S-Since your parents are out, I'll call them and tell them about these... c-conditions. In the meantime... I'll w-work on contacting Gaster."

"good work alphys. thanks a bunch."

"Yeah!" Alphys collected the helmets from the children and smiled.

Frisk thought for a moment. Something felt like it was missing. "Hey, Alphys?"

"Y-Yes?"

"What happened to Mettaton?"

"O-Oh. H-He's touring... doing concerts... I have no idea how he managed to get into the b-business. I-It's a mystery. I might c-contact him later." Frisk nodded.

"mettaton. what a character." He thought Mettaton's entertainment persona was obnoxious. Unfortunately, there happened to be no discernable differences between his entertainment personality and his real personality. "do you two feel any different? no? that's good. looks like gaster will have to find something else to bother you about. wanna go get some nice cream?" Before they could even say yes, they were outside on a footpath.

 

* * *

 

"...so, long story short. i have no idea what gaster wants. i have no idea how you are causing him 'suffering' or whatever, and i have no clue how he somehow managed to create a form for himself. but i take it he's pretty annoying, huh?" They both nodded timidly, licking the last of their nice creams as they sat calmly on a park bench. Asriel saw some flowers among all the various flora and began to feel anxious. "you guys shouldn't worry about him. alphys and i determined his form isn't really physical. all he can do is scare you. not sure what he's trying to achieve by doing that." Sans somehow seemed to radiate an aura of protection that even Chara felt, despite being so unambitious and definitely not looking the part. All three of them had seen his true power in the past at some point, which was probably why they felt so safe around him. If, and only if anything were to happen that threatened everyone's happiness, then Sans would use that power. He hoped he'd never have to use it again. "we'll have to see what he wants. for now, just forget about him." 

"...Hey, Frisk. What did your wrapper say?"

"It says..." They pulled the rubbish out of their pocket and opened it. "You will receive a hug from someone you love."

"Mine says the same!"

Before Sans could make a comment that would result in copious amounts of blushing, Undyne came thundering down the footpath and saved the two children from certain embarrassment. She looked extremely... energized.

"HEY PUNKS! CAN'T TALK RIGHT NOW! EXERCISING!"

"where's pap?" She was already so far down the path, Sans didn't expect an answer.

"HE'S ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BLOCK TIMING ME! SEE YAS!" She turned a sharp corner and disappeared behind a row of trees. Sans turned to face the two children sitting closely side by side.

"you know, i don't get why papyrus trains with undyne. we skeletons don't have any muscles or anything, so it's pretty much a lost cause. whatever makes him happy, i guess."

"Do other monsters have muscles?" Frisk asked inquisitively. Despite being surrounded by them, they knew very little about monster anatomy.

"some of them. boss monsters in particular are closer to humans than others. either way, we're still made of magic."

"Are they like human muscles?"

"you'd have to ask alphys. i'm more of a math guy. a physicist, to be precise."

"So you can help Az and I with our math homework when we start school?" they said pleadingly.

"heh, sure. those seven times tables are cranium-benders," he jested mockingly. "asriel, you alright there buddy?" 

He was staring blankly at a patch of daisies across from them. "I'm fine..." Neither Sans or Frisk bugged him any further.

"fair enough. frisk, hows it feel to have your soul tethered to someone else?"

Noting that Sans was genuinely intrigued by all this soul stuff, they offered as good as a recount as they could offer. "It feels weird. It's not like sharing a body, but I can like... sense him?"

"is chara's soul tethered as well?" Frisk nodded. "huh. you gotta tell me how all this stuff works sometime. 's fascinating. i always wanted to study souls, but unlike sitting down and doing math, that actually requires you to do physically do something," he snickered. "anyway. can i talk to your him?" Frisk looked puzzled and tilted their head. "chara." That seemed to pull the goat child out of his trance for a brief moment, but he reverted his gaze back to the flowers.

"Hi." Chara cringed. "What is it?"

"you've been kinda quiet over the past couple days. just wanted to say hi."

"...Why?" Chara seemed frustrated, as if Sans was purposely annoying him.

"why not?"

"Why are you being so nice to me? I tried to kill you. Several times. And you explicitly stated that you hated me."

"that reminds me, i wanted to talk about something else. frisk wants everyone to be happy, and for that... you've a lot on your hands you gotta sort out." Chara frowned at his evasion of the question. Asriel's eyes didn't move.

"What? Who are you to tell me this?" he snapped.

"listen. i'm not too upset you tried to kill me. at least you didn't succeed, huh?" The human child huffed. "anyway, there are only three people on this planet who know you exist. and how many people are you surrounded by every day? the reason i'm saying this, i said earlier. frisk wants everyone to be happy. you're on the fence, and frankly... i don't wanna see you fall down the wrong side of it." Chara couldn't tell if he was being sincere to him or just wanted to please Frisk. "so. i think... you should tell everyone you're here. at least just tori and asgore. that'll help."

"I have been thinking about it," he admitted. "But I don't understand why you care. You even told Frisk you couldn't forgive me."

"that's good to hear. and i changed my mind."

"Why?" He cringed at his confession.

"heh. i'm still a judge, you know. we have to be forbearing sometimes." Chara gave up trying to understand him and just gave control back to Frisk.

"Thanks, Sans."

"no problem."

Frisk turned to face their brother, who had been staring straight ahead the whole time and not saying anything. They put a hand on his shoulder and shook him gently to snap him out of it.

"What's wrong?"

"U-Umm..." He began sweating and looked panicked. "F-Frisk... Can I talk to you later about it?"

"Sure," they said nervously. Sans had an idea it was something to do with the patch of flowers across from them. 

 _poor kid_ , he thought. "you guys wanna go home now?" As if he already knew the answer, they were suddenly sitting on their couch at home.

With perfect timing, Toriel entered the room carrying groceries at that exact moment, among them a large bag containing something else. She seemed to hold all of them with ease.

"Good evening, my children! I am sorry I left you alone for so long," she bubbled, placing the bags down on the table and hugging her children on the couch. Toriel wondered why they were staring at the television; it wasn't switched on. "I got something for you two while I was out!" She stood up and grabbed one of the bags. "Matching sweaters!" Inside were about eight green and yellow sweaters. Asriel had only one sweater of his own so he had been wearing Frisk's for a while. The two children beamed at the sight, but it seemed to make Chara uneasy.

"Thanks Mom!"

"Anytime, dear. What shall we have for dinner? Papyrus is having a... 'sleepover', which I believe is the correct term, at Undyne's house, so we can hold off on spaghetti for tonight," she chuckled.

"I want pie," both of the children spoke in unison.

"Hmm... That sounds good! Sans?"

"i could go for pie."

"Alright. While I am baking, I would like you to have a bath." She looked at Asriel, who nodded. "You avoided me this morning! Also, Asgore would like to begin teaching you magic tomorrow afternoon!" she added. "Do you remember much?" Asriel shook is head. He remembered how to summon those 'friendliness pellets' as Flowey, but he couldn't do that anymore for obvious reasons.

"hey, tori. did alphys call you?"

"She did. I do not believe it will be a problem," she smirked. "I cannot imagine them ever needing to be far apart."

"indeed," the skeleton gloated. "even if they had to hold hands for the rest of their lives, i don't think they'd mind." Toriel grinned at the thought, but the two children decided they wouldn't have it this time and went upstairs.

* * *

 

Without a second thought, Frisk jumped into Asriel's bed wearing a green and yellow sweater. After what Sans had said they weren't particularly afraid of Gaster anymore, but they still enjoyed sleeping in the same bed. It would probably become a habit; it was comforting for all three of them. They often had trouble sleeping anyways as they'd all seen so many things they wish they could forget about, and their maudlin conversations being broadcasted across the room would probably wake someone up so it was also a matter of convenience. Chara noticed that after having a bath for the first time in years and being dried off by fire magic, Asriel's fur was insanely soft.

"Frisk..." He broke the comforting silence.

"Yeah?"

"You know how I said... I wanted to talk to you about something?" He felt them nod. "I... I saw a patch of flowers today. And it reminded me of Flowey." He began sobbing again. "Frisk... I've seen everyone d-die, so many times..." They began rubbing his head like Chara had advised. It was strangely effective.

"I'm so sorry you had to see that. But you won't ever see it again."

"I wish I could forget about it," he whimpered. 

"Me too." Frisk wished they could wipe each other's memories of everything that happened before the barrier was destroyed. Flowey's memories would haunt Asriel for the rest of his life, Chara was unpredictable, some weirdo wants Asriel dead for some reason, and Frisk was doing their best to keep them all happy. 

A while passed before Asriel began feeling better. All he could do was try to forget about it; push the thoughts to the back of his mind and hope they wouldn't fester into something terrible. That was what Chara said he did; forget about his past entirely. Unfortunately for him and unknown to Asriel, that didn't turn out so well as all of his repressed memories overwhelmed him when he was unexpectedly reincarnated and went on a rampage.

"Chara," he whispered. "Did you... Are you going to..."

"I thought about it," he said. Although both of his human siblings shared the same voice, Asriel could distinctly tell which one of them was saying what. "And... I want to," he conceded. Chara felt himself being squeezed tightly. "But only to Mom and Dad." Although he couldn't see, he knew his brother was grinning wildly.

"What about Undyne? She can be your bodyguard, too! She might even remember you!" Chara was probably the reason Undyne originally hated humans so much; he single-handedly shattered the underground's hopes and dreams with his plan. Undyne was much older than she looked; she was a teenager when Chara first came. 

"Az. How can she be my _body_ guard if I don't have a body to guard?" He felt Frisk falling asleep. It was basically his body whenever that happened.

"Oh. Right," he acknowledged. "So... Do you wanna tell them tomorrow? We have matching sweaters now!"

"Yeah. I'd like to. You were right. I don't like how we only talk when we're alone, either." He wasn't going to admit that what Sans had said had influenced his decision. He refused to believe what he said was anything more than a method of getting something out of Frisk. "How are they going to react... when another one of their dead children just appears out of nowhere? And is inside the body of another one of their children? That's so weird."

"It is weird... But it makes you happy, so it's not weird!"

"Thanks, Az. I love you."

"I love you too." It was as calming as when Frisk said it.

"By the way..." he added. "How are you gonna tell them?"

"Um," he thought for a moment. In spite of all of his thinking, he hadn't even considered that. "Well... I could fight Dad when he teaches you magic tomorrow."

"What? No!"

"Geez, relax! Frisk's soul is slightly brighter than mine. I'll tell him it's me, then I'll fight him so he can see my soul if they don't believe me. Then, he'll tell mom." Asriel squeezed his brother tightly and said goodnight.

 _Frisk... are you there? No? Ugh._ Chara gave up and went to sleep. The distortion was back, but he ignored it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's time to welcome Chara to the family!  
> By the way, thanks for all of your comments. I love reading over them.


	13. Chapter 13

Chara sat upon the edge of the bed, kicking their legs back and forth. He reached over and parted the curtains, peeking through the window to see outside. Disappointingly, the majority of the view had been obstructed by a large tree trunk and the only view that remained was that of the dark clouds looming above. 

Gaster hadn't shown up last night and neither of them had nightmares, so his mind was rather clear. Very clear. The contrast made him realize how overwhelmingly annoying he must have been for Frisk to deal with. He thought about how he was going to tell Asgore that he's not dead. He didn't want to tell Toriel first because, well, she'd been the one who had taken his body, buried him with her own hands, and visited him every day since he died. It would be far more difficult for her than for Asgore.

Frisk woke up suddenly. _Good morning._ _What're you thinking about?_

Chara fidgeted for a moment, his train of thought suddenly derailed. 

_I'm gonna tell them._

Frisk thought for a moment before realizing what he meant. They never pushed Chara to do anything, but they'd encouraged him to do this in the past.

_Are you sure? You don't have to if you don't want to._

_I want to,_ he reassured.  _Frisk..._

_Yeah?_

_What Sans said yesterday. Did you tell him to say that?_ Frisk shook Chara's head in response.

 _No. I was surprised he said that,_ they confessed.  _I thought he would hate you forever._

 _Yeah._ Chara hopped off the bed and exchanged their current sweater for another identical one, then headed into the bathroom where he could sense his brother's soul. Asriel was standing there, clumsily trying to brush his teeth. Upon seeing Chara's reflection in the mirror behind him, he jumped and spat toothpaste onto the floor.

"O-Oh... Sorry! You scared me," he bubbled through a mouthful of water. Chara couldn't help but laugh at him.

"What were you doing?" He snickered.

"Trying to... brush my teeth."

"Trying?" Chara tilted his head and looked puzzled at his brother for a moment. How could you fail such a simple task? "...Oh. You forgot how to brush your teeth." He remembered that Asriel did not have a proper body for at least a decade. "Do you want me to show you?" He asked with a smile.

Asriel nodded shyly as Chara grabbed his own toothbrush and applied toothpaste on it.

"Just copy what I do," he said before grinning and putting the brush against his front teeth. He frantically rubbed the bristles against all of his teeth as bubbles began forming in his mouth. Asriel timidly did his best to copy what he was seeing, but couldn't do it as quickly. The shape of his teeth were also much different, so it was hard for him to perfectly imitate what Chara was doing.

After a minute or so of frantic brushing, Chara spat out the toothpaste and Asriel saw that as his cue to do the same. They grinned at each other to show their teeth, giggling. Asriel's fangs appeared very shiny, but the rest of his teeth weren't visible beneath his lips. Chara didn't show much of his teeth, either.

"Az, where are all your other teeth?"

"You can't really see them," he said. "They aren't fully grown yet!"

"Aww. That's cute." Asriel's cheeks turned red.

"...So, Chara, are you ready? To tell them?" He nodded slowly. "Let's go have breakfast!" Asriel snatched his brother's hand and raced downstairs, chasing the smell of pie permeating the house. Toriel and Sans were sitting at the table with plates of pie leftovers in front of them that hadn't been touched. Sans waved at them lazily.

"Good morning, children!" She pushed the plates over to two adjacent seats across from Sans. 

"Good morning, mom!" They climbed up onto the seats next to each other and immediately began eating. It tasted strange.

Asriel turned to face Chara. "You know, we should have brushed our teeth after breakfast," he giggled. It didn't ruin the taste of the pie for Chara, so he just nodded in agreement and continued eating.

"You two are silly," she jested. She turned to face Asriel. "After you are done, Asgore would like to teach you magic! Frisk, I am sorry, but you must tag along with your brother, as Alphys said."

Chara gave a smile and shrugged. "I don't mind," he reassured. He finished the last of his pie, but Asriel couldn't bear the taste after brushing his teeth and had given up on it.

* * *

 

The two children knocked on Asgore's door. His garden was beautiful; tall, perfectly trimmed hedges lay in place of wooden fences and he had two marble fountains either side of the path leading through his front yard to his door. There were small lamps scattered about which made it appear even prettier during nighttime as well as several trees holding various fruit and flowers. Asriel tried not to look at those. Papyrus had been insisting that Asgore trim a hedge in the shape of his face, and he promised he'd get around to it sometime. Despite all the meticulously cared for plant life, out here would be perfect for a game of catch. Between all the trees and ornaments, there was plenty of open space covered with perfectly-trimmed grass.

The door swung wide open. It had to be enlarged so Asgore could comfortably fit through.

"Oh! Good morning, kids!" He bent down and picked them both up effortlessly. "I am sorry I have not seen you lately," he apologized. "I have had a lot of business to attend to." He set the two children down on the floor in his living room. The roof was extremely high, and all of his furniture looked like props taken from the set of a movie about giants.

"It's okay," said Asriel. "Am I gonna learn how to make fireballs today?"

Asgore chuckled. "Perhaps with the help of Frisk's soul you might! Although, from what I understand, determination does very little for magic users," he affirmed. "Now, let us begin."

Chara walked over to Asgore's huge couch and lay down on it as he couldn't use magic. Occasionally he'd feel Asriel draw something from his or Frisk's soul, but it wasn't much. All he could think about was telling Asgore he's here.

After about ten minutes of Asgore telling his son what to do, there was a slight crackle, a whelp in comparison to Asgore's mighty flames, as Asriel bleated with delight and ran over to Chara. "Hey! Look what I can do!" He held up his palm and strained for a moment, before a spark jumped out of his palm followed by a brief puff of flames. "Isn't that cool?" Chara nodded, but didn't say anything.

 _That's pretty cool,_ Frisk said.

"It is impressive indeed," Asgore bellowed. "That you were able to learn so quickly." 

"Hey, Dad?" Chara reluctantly chimed in. Asriel backed away slightly.

"Yes, Frisk?"

"Can I... Since I can't use magic... Can I practise dodging your attacks?" He began to feel very nervous, however Asgore didn't notice.

The hulking boss monster seemed surprised. "Of course! Whenever you are ready, step forward."

Chara hopped off the couch and bared his soul to Asgore.

"Now, as you may know already, the power of a monster's magic against another's soul comes from the monster's desire to inflict harm. Of course, I could not possibly harm you, so if any of my attacks were to hit, you should not feel a single thing." He smiled. The last time they fought, he had been staring at the ground miserably the entire time. His desire to fight then was so low in fact that even his strongest attacks barely hurt at all; and that was when he had the hopes of the entire underground behind him. "Ready?"

Asgore raised his palm and sent a wall of white flames hurdling at Chara. These flames did not seem to radiate heat or emit light, so he did not have to worry about accidentally burning down his house. Chara hadn't fought like this in a long time, and did his best to zip between the fireballs. His distinctly different soul stood out among the flames that had passed.

"That was impress..." Asgore's voice trailed off, and he stopped the fight. Chara left his soul out in the open as Asriel stared from the couch. "Frisk. Your soul... It is... Nevermind. I am just seeing things. We will continue." He started the fight again and summoned a magical blue scythe.

"No," said Chara. A tear ran down his cheek.

"Frisk? Did I hurt you?" The scythe faded into thin air as Asgore rushed over and began cradling the child, attempting to use healing magic.

"No... It's..." Chara took a deep breath. He felt safe and calm in Asgore's huge arms. "Look at my soul, Dad." Chara bared his soul again, this time much closer to Asgore's face. His soul was a dark, crimson red, not far off from the color of old blood. Frisk's, however, was a very bright strawberry colour.

"Frisk... W-What has happened? I think I understand... But I do not." Asgore was in a state of shock.

"It's me," he said. "Chara."

The words struck Asgore deeply in the chest as he stared blankly at the wall, and then into Chara's eyes. The shock was immeasurable; two of his dead children had appeared in front of him only days apart from each other. Their deaths, the worst thing to ever happen to him, the dreaded event that had made him kill six children, had apparently just been undone.

After a minute of cradling, Asgore finally spoke. "I... I always had a feeling," he said. "That it was you. When I first met Frisk... I thought it was you. They had that same look of hope in their eyes..." Asgore tightened his hold. "I love you, Chara. I am so sorry you had to fall ill. I am so sorry I could not prevent what happened that night." Asgore let down his strong resolve and sometimes emotionless exterior, and allowed a silent tear to roll down his cheek.

Immediately, Chara began feeling better. As if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders, as if another switch had been flipped that allowed more love and joy into his life. For the minutes he lay in Asgore's arms, he forgot about all the horrible things he'd been through and let tears flow down his cheeks. He felt what could only be described as an invisible hug from Frisk as Asriel watched with a wide smile. 

"Chara," he said. "I... I am glad you are here. Does Tori know?" Chara shook their head slowly. "That is okay. I must ask, if it is okay with you... How long have you been here, Chara? And... Where is Frisk?"

It was time for him to explain. "I... Can we go to M-Mom... I'll tell you two everything," he stuttered, not wanting to have to repeat his spiel twice.

"All right." Asgore bent down and picked up Asriel with his other arm. "Tori... She will be very... surprised," he said quietly. Asgore made his way outside, clutching his two children. Chara's hand found its way into his brothers, who smiled at him reassuringly.

* * *

 

Asgore arrived at the front door. Toriel's home was not particularly large, so he had to crouch to fit through. His horns barely scraped the roof; if he were to stand on his toes they would pierce right through the ceiling.

"Greetings, Asgore. How did Asriel go?" Toriel hoped Asgore had not hurt them. It was unlike him to walk in silently carrying their children. 

Asgore had almost completely forgotten that Asriel had actually summoned a flame. "Very good. He was able to conjure a small fireball!  Show her, son." Asgore set the two children down on the ground before Asriel rushed over and made a small spark pop out of his palm.

"That's great, dear! And Frisk, did you have fun?" Chara just stared blankly. His eyes were slightly red from crying, which Toriel noticed immediately. She shot a fierce glare at Asgore, and almost told him to get out before he spoke up.

"Tori." He said solemnly. "I... I do not know how to explain this."

"What have you done?" she scowled. She picked up the human child and embraced them in a tight hug, fearing for the worst. 

"...I am sorry. I truly do not know what to say," he said, words becoming broken in his throat. Toriel looked enraged, but it did little against Asgore right now. "Frisk is... They... I cannot do this." Asgore gave in and faced the floor. "Please, Chara. Show her."

"Chara?" She seemed almost offended that Asgore could say that name. "What is the meaning of this? Asgore, have you gone mad?" Toriel scolded.

"Mom..." Chara looked up at her for a moment, then let his soul escape his chest. Its distinctly darker light spilled onto Toriel. Tears rolled down his cheeks, as he feared rejection or denial that it was truly him. 

"I..." Toriel put a hand up to her mouth and her eyes widened in shock. "Is this... Ch... No, that is impossible. Frisk?"

Chara shook their head. "It's me," he sobbed. "Chara."

She turned to her other child who just smiled at her and nodded, before scooping him up in the hug as well and crushing both of her once-deceased children tightly against her chest. She refused to question any further.

After a solid five minutes of close hugging, Toriel spoke. "Both of my children... Are alive. I watched both of you die... I was powerless to stop it." She looked at Asriel. "I watched you... turn to dust in front of my very eyes," she cried. She turned to Chara, who was sobbing gently into her sleeve. "And... I held your hand on your deathbed... I carried your dead body through the underground... I buried you... I visited you every day... and now, you are both here?"

Chara shuddered and sobbed. They were a mix between happy and sad tears that saturated Toriel's sweater. The feeling of a weight being removed from his shoulders was back, and stronger than before. The feeling of genuine love washed over his soul stronger than he'd ever felt in the past. He felt Asriel's soft arm close over him.

"My child... I... How?" She was still shocked, and Asgore just watched solemnly.

"...I've been here all along," he admitted through his muffled sobs. "But... I didn't want to tell anyone." He began sobbing again as Toriel rubbed his back. Asriel squeezed him tighter. Asgore came up beside them and put a hand upon his ex-wife's shoulder.

"Why? N-No... Nevermind. It is fine. I understand." She continued rubbing his back gently. "Chara, my child. I am so sorry... I am sorry we... Asgore and I could not prevent everything..." She clutched them tighter. They held that position for a long time while Asriel and Chara were wrapped up together in Toriel's arms. Eventually, the silence was broken.

"Chara," said Asgore. "We are glad to have you back. Words cannot describe how I... We feel." Chara removed his face from his mother's sleeve and smiled, wiping tears from his eyes with his own sweater. "But... Where is Frisk?"

Chara swapped back with Frisk, who bared their own soul. Its cherry-red was easily distinguishable from Chara's darker shade. 

_Do you want me to do the rest?_

_Please,_ he pleaded. It was a little overwhelming for him. He wasn't used to having more than one person speak to him at a time.

"Frisk... You are there," rumbled Asgore. "You are... Both of your souls are in one body?" They nodded. Toriel continued cradling them both. "So... I take it you know Chara very well," he said trying to make light of the situation having already felt the initial shock. Frisk nodded again.

"B-But... How is this possible?" Toriel had not yet recuperated from the shock.

"I... When I fell on those flowers... His soul became attached to mine." Both of the boss monsters nodded in response, as if they understood fully now. "He's gone away for a bit," said Frisk, expecting their parents to look confused. However, they seemed to know what was going on. "It took a long time for him to do this... He's a little shocked. He doesn't want anyone else to know just yet."

"I... We understand." Toriel placed the two children down again. Asriel hesitantly released his tight hug.

"Chara," said Asgore. "I am not sure how this... sharing of a body works, but... If you can hear me... We are glad you told us." He looked at Asriel. "And we love you all the same." The entire family entered yet another embrace.

Chara let the newfound love wash over him. Love, not LOVE, this time.

* * *

 

Asgore had come around once again for dinner, and after that they had planned to invite everyone over to watch a movie. They had been finding it awkward having to ask if it was Frisk or Chara they were talking to, but the sensation that their family was fully reunited as it should have always been was enough so that it didn't really matter. However, just like when Asriel appeared at their doorstep, it was surreal and dreamlike. The boss monsters would often show brief expressions of surprise whenever they saw them. The two still recalled that Chara was a very sensitive child, and promised each other to do their best to accommodate for it. Toriel also noticed that he had been very quiet since he showed himself. There was no indication that Frisk had let him take their place at all since then, but they still did not know how sharing a body worked exactly.

Papyrus was cooking spaghetti for dinner, and Asgore and Toriel decided not to directly address Chara for now as a result. Papyrus was a rather loud individual, and having him booming with confusion about Chara would probably make him upset. 

They all sat around the table eating in quiet. Asgore found this very difficult and had to return home to grab one of his custom-made dining table chairs. Toriel's dining table chairs were still too large for Frisk and Asriel, who could barely see over the table when they sat on them. The spaghetti wasn't spectacular, but Papyrus was somehow able to produce it in such quantities that it was very filling.

"hey pap, why don't we save some for undyne n alphys?"

"AS MUCH AS I WOULD LIKE FOR THEM TO ENJOY THIS BATCH, THEY ARE HAVING THEIR OWN DINNER."

"hm.  _bone_ appetit, then." Papyrus frowned immensely, and everyone but Asgore laughed.

"Sans, I believe the saying is  _bon_ appetit," he corrected.

"hmm...  _tibia_ honest, that sounds about right." Asgore made a strange expression as everyone giggled at him.

After a while of enduring the occasional pun being bounced off of Papyrus, dinner was over and Undyne crashed through the door with perfect timing as if she had been observing them eat. Alphys made an entrance too, but hers was far less sensational.

"HEY, EVERYONE!" she roared.

"H-Hi, guys..."

"Undyne," said Asgore, ignoring her greeting. "You appear to have damaged the door." One of the hinges had been detached and the door was bent at a strange angle.

"Indeed I have, your majesty!" Asgore frowned. "Alphys brought a movie for us to watch!" Undyne valiantly pulled out a DVD out from behind her back. On it were strange symbols, which Alphys called "Japanese". There were also giant robots on it, which was enough to convince Frisk and Asriel. Chara was oddly quiet.

Everyone cluttered on the couch to watch the movie. Unfortunately, Toriel and Asgore were so great in size that Papyrus, Sans, and Alphys had to sit on the floor. The two children sat on Toriel's lap on one side, Undyne was in the middle, and Asgore was on the other side. Each group had their own bowl of popcorn, which were demolished in minutes. The movie was quite uninteresting and boring for most of them except for the kids, and especially not for Undyne who shouted wildly at all the fighting scenes. Minutes in, Sans fell asleep. Papyrus expressed genuine confusion at a lot of the scenes, while Alphys did her best to explain.

"ALPHYS, WHAT DID THAT WOMAN JUST SAY?"

"She said... 'Exoskeleton.' "

"WHAT IS THAT? A NEW TYPE OF SKELETON?"

"N-No... It's like a metal... skeleton? But not a skeleton like you or Sans... And they aren't alive, either."

"OH." He turned to face his brother. "DID YOU HEAR THAT? EXO-" Papyrus frowned. "SANS! WAKE UP! YOU'RE MISSING THE MOVIE!"

"Quiet, punk! I'm trying to listen!" She drove her knuckles into the top of his head.

"OW! UNDYNE, PLEASE!" 

Eventually, everyone fell asleep. Frisk and Asriel were the first to go - except for Sans, while Toriel and Asgore were the last. They were busy trying not to think about why and how their children had returned, and focused on just accepting that it had happened and that everyone was happy.

"Asgore,"

"Yes, Tori?"

"This is..." She looked down at the two children curled up in her lap. They were snoring. "This is... indescribable. I am joyed... yet I am also shocked."

"I understand. I... I cannot put how I feel into words. The loss of our children caused me to do... horrible things," he admitted solemnly. "Yet... Despite my sins," he mumbled as he scanned his eyes around the room. "I have a family again. Every single wound I suffered in the war... I would endure a thousand more times, just to see one of them again. And, they are here... with no such sacrifice."

"I... I know. Asgore, I..." She looked up at him and smiled, appreciating his sincerity. "I am sorry I abandoned you. I chose to do so at the worst possible time." 

"...Do not worry. All that matters to me is that we are a family again." Toriel smiled again, and nodded in agreement. 

 A faint, deep buzzing sound filled the room as the last of the family fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I always appreciate comments, or even suggestions, so if you like this story and if you'd like to, feel free to leave either one of those.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another fluffy chapter 'cuz I love writing them. My apologies as I might not be able to update this as frequently due to IRL stuff, but I'll do my best :)  
> It's kind of leading on to the next chapter, too.

Chara woke in an uncomfortable mass of appendages, which led him to believe he had been kidnapped. A slimy claw gripped his arm and a huge, furry paw clamped down on his chest as his leg was held upon a bony shoulder. A shadowy figure which he recognized as Gaster stood in the corner of the room, staring at him. Sans said that he couldn't do anything, so he wasn't too afraid of him. He considered thrashing about and running away from all these people surrounding him but various snores indicated that they were all asleep, so he slowly attempted to wriggle out of the grip. He had to do it very calmly as to not wake any of them up, which only made him more uncomfortable. As he clambered out of the hold, he looked around and realized he was at home. He still couldn't make out who all these people were, but felt a hand upon his shoulder he didn't recognize.

"It's disgusting, isn't it?" 

Chara recognized the voice from behind him, yet it was void of distortion and was fully comprehensible. It was very deep and raspy.

"As if he..." A long, trembling arm extended forward from the side of his field of vision. It appeared to be draped in a very loose, black robe. Chara's eyes traced along its path until it met a skeletal hand with a hole in the center, and a finger extended at the couch. "... wasn't enough, you had to disrupt things even further." 

Chara jerked away and sprinted upstairs. Although he couldn't hear it, he knew Gaster was following him. He tumbled into his room and slammed the door behind him, before burying himself beneath the blankets of their bed and hoped he would just go away. He was scared, yet furious at the same time as he clawed at his pillow trying to tear it to shreds to stop himself from getting too angry. He was tired of Gaster and just wanted him to leave him alone.

"Alphys may have fixed your souls..." The voice was right above him somehow. "...But that doesn't excuse their existences. Thanks to her, I'm here now, too. I'm as real as you are."

"...Where are the knives," he snapped as he decided he'd had enough, and threw the blankets aside to looked at his attacker in the face. He was indeed a skeleton, however his head appeared damaged. Two cracks ran up and down his face near his misshapen eye sockets, and his mouth was locked in a permanent curve similar to Sans. It was this bloodthirsty feeling again, except this time he didn't even try to hold it back. He'd had enough of Gaster's nonsense.

"Why? Are you going to make my job easier and end your own life for me?" He chuckled. Chara stood up and walked over to the bathroom, ignoring Gaster entirely. "How generous of you."

He scanned the floor, searching for the knife he'd used a while ago. For some reason, no one had ever picked it up after that incident. The tip of its blade was slightly visible beneath one of the cabinets and he crouched down to pull it out from beneath.

"Good. Now, just hold it against your throat and push it in."

The handle seemed to fit perfectly in his palm. He gripped it tightly and looked up at Gaster, wondering where the best place to stab him would be. He couldn't reach his head, and wasn't sure he would strike anything if he just stabbed at his robe. A vertical slash would probably do the most damage, then. He slowly raised the blade above his head. Surprisingly, Gaster didn't even flinch.

"Ah, good idea. You won't be in pain for as long if you get some force behind it."

Chara squeezed the handle as hard as he could before swinging it downward in front of him with all of his might. He looked up and the blade had passed right through the tall, robed figure, leaving not even a tear in his clothing. He swung again and again, blindly stabbing into his robe and becoming even more enraged with each slash. 

"...You're quite unstable, aren't you," he said. Chara continued swinging. Gaster raised a palm and Chara found himself unable to move. He struggled against it, but to no avail. It reminded him of Sans's blue magic, but a thousand times stronger. "...I could kill you right now. I should. But you know why I cannot, don't you?" Gaster tightened the grip. "If I do... the two anomalies you are attached to will simply reset everything. You'll end up back here, and I'll have to do this all over again. Instead, I'll wear out your determination. I'll come back, over and over, until you give up yourself."

"...Why?" He said, defeated. "What do you want?"

He growled. "Your existence is agonizing. You and your siblings existing at the same time as I... somehow, causes me physical pain," he scolded. "With each reset you perform, I am scattered around once again. Until now, I have been powerless to do anything about it. Once you've given up. I'll take your soul from this body, as well as your brother's, and destroy them." He frowned before vanishing. Chara dropped to the ground, and heard the clang of the knife as its blade crashed onto the floor. He attempted to get up, but still could not bring himself to move. Somehow, Gaster's magic had left him in intense pain. He tried to move again, but an immense ache shot up through his bones and he cried out in agony. Instead, he just lied on the floor and stared blankly at the ceiling. He tried to wake up Frisk.

They jolted awake suddenly.  _Chara?_ He jerked slightly, but didn't respond. They noticed they were in severe pain and that there was a knife next to them, but there was no sign that the knife had been used for anything.

 _Chara, what happened?_ They winced through the agony. He half-heartedly shrugged his shoulders in response. It felt like their bones had been shattered and then crudely glued back together. It was unlike anything they'd ever experienced.  _Why does everything hurt so badly?_ Chara simply groaned. Frisk took over and attempted to get up. Their legs felt too weak to support them, so they had to crawl along the floor. Slowly, they dragged themselves across the carpet while doing their best to endure the excrutiating pain and pulled themselves onto Asriel's bed, the closest one to the bathroom. "Please, Chara, what happened?!" They shouted worriedly.

They found a comfortable position on their back that didn't hurt too much to lie in. "Chara, please," they said softly. Chara liked the sound of their voice. It was soothing and relaxed, but bubbly at the same time. Chara couldn't imitate it perfectly when he spoke, as he retained traces of his own voice. He could listen to it all day, until it put him to sleep. He imagined what Frisk would sound like singing, and his heart melted.

"...Chara, really? This is serious!"

"What?" was the first thing he said.

Frisk quietened down. "Is that why you won't say anything? Because you want to hear my voice?" Although it was ridiculous, random, and uncalled for, they still felt flattered.

Chara blushed, forgetting that Frisk can hear his thoughts sometimes. "That was just a side thought," he insisted falsely.

Frisk sighed. "...Okay. Now, can you tell me what happened?" They spoke with a weirdly affectionate tone again and Chara zoned out for a bit. "...Chara."

"Shouldn't you remember? Since we share memories and stuff," he explained, not wanting to recount everything himself.

"Oh... Right." They remembered Chara waking up, everything Gaster said, as well as Chara attempting to kill them, before letting it all process for a moment. "...We need to tell Sans." Chara nodded. He wasn't too worried about it; from what they understood, Gaster wasn't going to try to kill any of them. "And we need to get rid of that knife."

Chara tried to move their arm, but was stopped by a sudden stabbing sensation throughout the left side of their body. "Frisk... This really hurts," he groaned.

"Yeah." They didn't want to wake anyone up, so they decided to just put up with it. "You seem really calm about what just happened," they said fondly. "Are you okay?" 

Chara zoned out again before nodding frantically in case he was too late to answer the question. "He won't do anything," he reassured.

Frisk pouted. "That's not what I asked," they said trying not to sound mean.

"Oh. Yeah, I'm fine."

"...So, you like the sound of my voice?" they asked awkwardly. Chara grinned shamelessly. It was kind of weird. "Um..."

"No! Not like that..." He wasn't sure what "that" meant, but didn't want Frisk to think he was creepy. "It's just... relaxing."

"You've never said that before."

"I don't know either, to be honest. I just like it." Frisk smiled, not minding at all.

"It's okay," they assured.

"...Thanks." There was a light knock on the door. It was too soft to be Undyne or Papyrus, and if it were Toriel or Asgore, they would have heard them approaching. They couldn't think of a reason why Alphys would bother coming up here. That left Asriel and Sans, but he sensed Asriel's soul was still downstairs. The door slowly creaked open and a wide figure stepped through before closing it again.

"hey."

"Why didn't you just teleport in here?"

"isn't knocking the courteous thing to do?" Sans switched on the lamp. "so... i heard what gaster said."

 _This guy knows everything, doesn't he?_  

Frisk accepted that a while ago, and never bothered asking how or why since. "...Why didn't you stop him?"

"'cuz he's not gonna kill you. besides, you can handle him, right?" he chuckled. "anyway, i came to say that i think gaster's gonna become more of a problem. alphys's attempts at contacting him were successful, and uh... i forgot what she said. but he's back, and he's almost got a physical form. so, we'll have to go see her tomorrow. your parents have some stuff to sort out with the humans again, and papyrus wanted to tag along with them. they might be a couple days, since they're in one of the human cities at the moment. by the way, undyne wants to train you guys again."

"Why don't we just kill Gaster?" Chara suddenly blurted out.

Sans looked stunned for a moment, but realized Frisk probably didn't say that. "well, he's still not fully physical. you can't really kill him without some kind of special stuff."

"Then what do we do?"

"what is this, an interview?" The human looked puzzled. "just kidding. if we can scatter him around again he should go away. and he won't be, uhh, 'suffering' anymore. no idea how to do that without resetting." Sans noticed that Frisk hadn't moved since they started talking and was lying in a strange position. "say, you look uncomfortable." 

"Gaster did some magic thing."

His expression shifted to worry. "oh? hmm... what's happened?"

"I don't know, but it really hurts to move."

"hmm. sounds like a familiar type of immobilizing blue magic." Sans thought for a moment. He didn't know everything about blue magic, and if his memory served, Gaster was the one who invented it. "if i recall correctly, it goes away on its own. i don't think you can do much to, um, cure it besides just waiting it out." Frisk attempted to nod. Lying in bed all day didn't sound so bad. "anyway... i'd love to deliver a prognosis, but i better go. someone's coming. see ya later." Sans vanished before they could ask who.

"Frisk, I still think he's weird," admitted Chara. "Why is he so calm and straightforward about everything? And how does he just know and hear and see everything that happens everwhere?"

Before Frisk could reply, the door carefully creaked open. They noticed Asriel's soul was close by.

"Guys?" He whispered.

"Hi." Chara laughed as his brother jumped.

"...What are you doing up here?" 

"Nightmare," they semi-lied.

"Aw. That sucks. You're in my bed, you know," he chuckled. It was basically their bed, now.

"I know." Even if they were able to, Frisk didn't plan to move from it. Instead, they tried to move over as best as they could. Asriel climbed in next to them and turned off the lamp before pulling the blankets over them both. "Why did you wake up?"

"My soul felt kinda weird because you were far away..." He didn't mention that he didn't want to go back to sleep downstairs because he'd probably have a bad nightmare if he wasn't with Frisk and Chara.

"Oh. I'm sorry." Frisk attempted to hug him apologetically but it hurt too much to move, and they yelped in pain.

Asriel noticed and turned to face them. "Are you alright?"

Frisk didn't want him to worry right now, so they thought of a lie to tell him. "Yeah. Chara fell down the stairs and now my whole body hurts." Frisk thought he was going to laugh, but he seemed shocked.

_I did not!_

"How bad does it hurt?" 

"I can't really move."

"That's bad," he whimpered. "Do you want me to wake up Mom? She can heal you..."

"It's okay."

Asriel pouted. "...Do you wanna hug, then? Since you can't move..." He felt Frisk nod, who probably knew he was blushing intensely. He gently put his soft arm over them and moved closer and tried not to squeeze them too tight. "Does it hurt?" 

They shook their head. "It feels good." It made their uncomfortable position somewhat relaxing. 

He tried not to feel sheepish. "What was your nightmare about?"

"Gaster," interrupted Chara. "But don't worry." Asriel nodded and pulled them tighter before they all fell asleep again.

* * *

 

Asriel dreamt that they were a flower again. It wasn't too horrifying; sometimes he would be forced to watch his entire family die over and over as Flowey. As long as no one he loved got hurt in his nightmares, he wasn't too afraid of them. He noticed Frisk was still in the same position as when they fell asleep.

"Good morning," he said as he rolled off of Frisk. "Do you feel better?"

Frisk stirred awake and tried to move their arm. An intense ache swept over them and they grimaced from the pain. Chara groaned at them as he tried to go back to sleep.

"No... It still hurts." Asriel frowned. "Az, why are you so soft?"

He frowned and made a weird noise. He was probably blushing, but Frisk couldn't turn to face him. "I don't know ...You're not complaining though, are you?" Frisk giggled at him and shook their head. "Also ...Frisk, I think we need to get you some help."

"Why?"

"Because you can't move!"

"Oh. Umm... I guess I was lying about falling down the stairs," they admitted. "...Gaster used some magic spell on Chara and now we can't move. I just didn't want you to worry about it."

Asriel had the most shocked expression on his face. Frisk thought it was adorable. "Of course I'm gonna worry about it! What do we do?"

"Relax! Sans said it would go away in a while."

He didn't seem very convinced. "A while? How long is that?" 

Frisk shrugged. It wasn't too painful. "Please don't worry. I'll be fine. I just need to rest."

"...Then what are we gonna do all day?"

"Just lie down together and do nothing, I guess," said Chara. He didn't mind that.

"That's boring! And what do we tell Mom and Dad when they get home?"

"They're doing business with the humans," they affirmed. "We can do something fun tomorrow. Maybe Undyne can take us to the park or something instead of boring training exercises." 

Asriel still looked frightened. "You seem really calm about this," he said.

"Because I know I'll be fine," they reassured. Asriel looked confused. "Can you call Sans? My phone is over there."

"Over where?"

"Umm... On the floor somewhere. I can't really point to it."

Asriel looked around and spotted it on the ground. He picked it up and fumbled around with it. "How do I use it?"

"Just press the green button."

The phone began ringing, and Sans spontaneously appeared in their room like last time. Asriel launched the phone across the room in fright and jumped onto the bed.

"woops. good morning."

"Hi, Sans." Asriel didn't say anything.

"hey. you feeling better?" Frisk shook their head, the only thing they could move that didn't hurt. "hm. i did some research on blue magic. it's a 'paralysis' spell. usually it lasts up to a week, but gaster's form isn't fully physical. from what i can detect by looking at you, it should be gone by tonight." He looked over to Asriel to make sure he was facing him. "that way, you'll be able to go back to cuddles with your bro." Both of their faces turned red as they groaned with frustration. Asriel was frowning, and Frisk was trying to turn away.

"heh. anyway, i'll bring alphys over to tell you what needs to be done with gaster. then, uhh... i guess you'll have to find a way to entertain yourself, since you can't move." Sans vanished, and reappeared instantly with Alphys right beside him. She looked disturbed.

"Sans, oh my god!," she cried. "U-Uhh, hi, guys. So... Gaster, umm, attacked you? Are you alright?" They nodded. "A-also.. I can't really help you with Gaster's magic thing. I d-don't know much about blue magic... Sans refuses to t-tell me anything about it..." He shrugged and winked. "But... he says it will fix itself. But!!" She seemed panicked. "That's n-not why I'm here. Y-You see, my attempts at contacting G-Gaster were successful, and um... He didn't say much, b-but he almost has a f-fully physical form now... yeah. It sounds bad, but... N-Now that we know what he wants, we can f-fix it! We just have to sc-scatter him across the timelines again. B-Bringing him back is impossible... A-and not what he wants, in case you were hoping for s-something else."

"How do we do that?"

"U-Uhh... The only way I can think of besides performing a reset..." Alphys started tapping her fingers. "Is to, umm... Destroy him with such power that he his forcibly scattered across the timeline again? Ha ha..." Frisk frowned. It was totally against their nature, but Alphys had made it clear there was nothing else they could do. "B-But don't worry. You won't have to do it."

"Who will, then?"

"Uhh... W-Well, I contacted M-Mettaton. He's been busy lately, but he's happy to visit us. H-His NEO form... Which you may have seen over your r-resets, has an extremely p-powerful particle cannon I designed. It's more powerful than a-anything else I've ever seen..."

"stronger than my blasters, apparently," Sans smirked. "way stronger. lucky he didn't use it on you, huh?"

"Y-Yeah. I'll upgrade his d-defenses, contact G-Gaster again so he becomes mostly physical... and Mettaton will probably d-destroy him on his own accord, if... Well, G-Gaster will have to hurt you... and Mettaton will have to see it, s-since you guys are his fans, I guess?. Are you alright with that?" Frisk nodded. They couldn't think of anything else that would work, and they weren't well versed on the technical side of things, either. If it ended Gaster's "suffering", then that was an added bonus. "A-Anyway... Sans, can you take me back?"

"why don't you walk? it's a nice day outside. it's only across the road."

Alphys frowned. "I didn't even ask to be brought here."

"i'm just joking. step right up." Sans pointed in front of him and Alphys stepped through, vanishing into thin air. "my shortcuts are neat stuff, eh?" Asriel nodded. "well... lying in bed all day sounds pretty exciting to me. you, on the other hand, need something to do, huh? well, i have an idea." Sans lifted up their drawer with blue magic and moved it to the foot of their bed. He vanished for a moment, and brought back a huge television surrounded by a blue haze hovering in the air. He put it down on the drawer and moved the plug into a socket in the wall. "telekinesis is convenient, huh? perfect for a guy like me."

"Sans, where did you get that TV?" Asriel asked, seemingly puzzled. He knew Sans was weird and spontaneous, but this seemed ridiculous.

"it's papyrus's. you two haven't even seen his room yet, haven't you?" he chortled. "that's weird. we've been here for a while. well, don't break it or i'll have to steal undyne and alphys's one. call out if you need anything. i'll be in my room." He turned on the TV before disappearing, and it immediately started up on a Mettaton concert. 

Asriel stared at the screen for a bit. "This is still boring," he said.

"Well, I can't really do anything else. You get to stay with me all day, that's not boring!"

Asriel giggled, and sat down on the bed. "That's true, I guess. Frisk, what did Gaster even want in the first place?"

"He said that us existing causes him physical pain or something," they exclaimed. "Alphys will sort it out."

"...For someone who's under a really painful magical spell and was just attacked by a weird ghost person I know nothing about who is gonna be killed by a robot TV star... you sure are calm." He smiled.

 "As long as you're here, I don't really mind what happens." Although it was cheesy, it was true. They didn't really care for what went on around them, as long as Asriel was here and Chara and everyone else was happy. Asriel grinned and lied down beside them. Mettaton wasn't particularly interesting, but keeping Frisk company was enough to compensate for it.

"Frisk, how do you say so calm about all that?" he asked suddenly. "I... I still get nervous when I think about Flowey... And seeing everyone die... and all that bad stuff."

"Those things don't really matter. They're not gonna affect anyone except you, so... it's best to just get over them." They turned their head and smiled. "And you have everyone to help you! Especially me," they chuckled.

"Yeah. Thanks." He grinned and turned to watch the television. Mettaton was doing some weird dance moves and the music he was dancing to wasn't particularly good. "...Can we watch something else?"

"Sure. Az, can you hit the wall?" He reached over Frisk and tapped the wall gently. "Not like that!" He thumped again. It wasn't too loud, but they hoped it caught Sans's attention. "Sans, can you bring the remote?" A remote control covered in blue dust dropped ontop of them instantly. "Thanks!" They called out. "Az, what do you wanna watch?" Frisk started flicking through the channels. They landed on a movie with cars chasing each other down the road with explosions everywhere, and settled on that.

_Frisk, you're real cheesy. I guess you already know that, since you flirted your way through three quarters of the underground several times..._

_You're the one who suddenly loves my voice and goes all quiet whenever I say 3 words,_ they retorted.

 _Geez, I surrender._ Frisk giggled.  _...What 3 words?_ Chara knew what they were, but asked anyway.

 _I don't know,_ they jested.

_Yes you do._

_Hmm... Hey, Chara?_

_What?_ He hoped Frisk wasn't going to attempt to change the subject.

_I love you._

Frisk felt a grin spread across their face and a weird melty feeling in their chest coupled with a fluttering sensation in their stomach. It was funny and adorable how Chara did that. They focused back on the television. 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure why all of my chapters end up starting so similarly. Oh well.  
> By the way, I love reading all of your comments. I guess you could say they fill me with determination.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't resist writing another ultra-fluffy chapter. Looks like Gaster is safe... for now!  
> WARNING: When I say ultra-fluffy... I mean it.

Although the movie was interesting, it wasn't enough to distract them from their constantly rumbling stomach. They hadn't eaten anything all day... how would they eat? They wouldn't even be able to sit up and put the food in their own mouth because their whole body still hurt really badly, but their stomach rumbled again, begging for them to eat something. Without thinking how they would eat something, Frisk asked Chara if he was hungry.

 _Of course I'm hungry,_ he snapped.  _You seem to forget sometimes that we're in the same body._

Frisk pouted.  _Geez... What do you want, then?_

Chara realized how mean that sounded.  _Umm... I'm sorry, Frisk._  They nodded and said it was OK as he thought about what he'd like to eat. _I feel like chocolate,_ he bubbled with enthusiasm that died down as he made another realization.  _But how are we gonna eat it? We can't move._

"Hmm..." they thought out loud. Asriel looked at them strangely. "Hey, Az?"

"Yeah?"

"Since we can't move... Can you help us eat?" they stammered. The thought of Asriel doing literally every single thing for them until they felt better made them feel peachy, but hopefully Gaster's spell wouldn't last that long.

Asriel smiled and sat up, willing to do whatever to help his incapacitated siblings. "Sure! What do you want? I can go downstairs and get something."

"Chara wants chocolate." He seemed pleased with the decision.

"Your favourite, huh? I'll go see if we have any," he said before climbing out of their bed and running downstairs.

"...Frisk, is Az gonna have to feed it to us like a baby?" He frowned.

"Well... Can you think of another way?"

"I don't mind," he affirmed. "I was just asking."

 "Then, yes. Yes he is." Asriel returned rather quickly. He was holding something in his right hand.

"I found some!" Chara grinned. Asriel walked up to them and looked contemplative for a moment. He considered just putting the chocolate bar in their mouth, but that was dumb because they would probably choke on it. "Hmm... Frisk, can you sit up?"

They tried to contract their abdominal muscles to move even the slightest off the bed, but the pain was intense. They cried out and jerked suddenly before slumping back down again.

"Oh no!" Asriel cried, horrified at the sight of his siblings in pain. "I'm sorry... Here, I'll help you up." Asriel put the chocolate bar on the nightstand, then walked over to Frisk before putting one arm under their head and one under their lower back, trying to lift them up. He wasn't very strong, but Frisk wasn't really that heavy anyway. He slowly eased them upright and leaned them up against the wall, shuffling them backwards so they were sitting upon their pillow. Frisk giggled at how hard he was trying to be extra gentle and not hurt them; although sometimes they couldn't help but make pained sounds, earning a terrified expression from their brother. They did their best to not be a limp ragdoll while also trying not to hurt themselves too much.

"Thanks, Az," they bubbled with a smile once they were comfortably propped up against the wall. "I love you."

"I love you, too." Asriel smiled back, showing his tiny fangs.

Frisk couldn't balance upright on their own, so Asriel had to sit beside them up against the wall with an arm gently wrapped around them as they leaned against his shoulder. They were closely beside each other with their legs out which didn't even reach a third of the way down the length of the bed. Asriel reached over and grabbed the half-unwrapped chocolate bar, fidgeting for a bit as he wasn't sure what to do with it. 

He put the chocolate in front of Frisk's lips and tried not to giggle as they took a small bite. It was weird at first, but they quickly got used to being fed. They would open their mouth, Asriel would give them the chocolate, they'd chew for a bit, Chara and Frisk would switch, and repeat. Chara found it awkward that his brother was just smiling at him and putting food in his mouth, but Asriel kept gently rubbing his shoulder with his fleecy arm tightly wrapped around him; strangely it distracted him from the situation. The chocolate was also really good, and it wasn't like he could eat it himself anyway.

"You seem really happy about something," Chara blurted through a mouthful of chocolate, acknowledging that his brother hadn't stopped grinning since he started feeding them.

His cheeks went red. "Yeah... I like taking care of you," he stammered. "Because I don't like seeing you hurt like this. It reminds me of when..." His expression slowly shifted to a mix of terror and sadness as he remembered Chara paralyzed upon his death bed.

"Shhh," Frisk quietly whispered, noticing the tremble in their brother's joyful grin. "I wish I could hug you right now. But I can't, so... Can you wait a while before being sad? I'm going to be fine." They lifted their head off of Asriel's shoulder and smiled at him; surprisingly it didn't hurt. He nodded, and offered them more of the half-finished chocolate. 

Frisk shook their head slightly. "You can have the rest." Asriel grinned, once again baring his adorable fangs which they couldn't help but notice. They were short and pearly white, and peeked up from behind his lips every time he smiled. Sometimes you could see them poking out even when his mouth was closed. "Az, by the way..."

"Yeah?" He started nibbling on the remaining half of the chocolate bar with Frisk still leaning upon his shoulder.

They couldn't resist complimenting them. "Your teeth are really cute." Asriel blushed once again and giggled through the mouthful.

 _Geez, Frisk._ Chara sniggered. _First it was Mom, now you flirt with your own brother?_

 _It's not flirting! It's a compliment,_ they flushed.

_I'm just joking. They are pretty cute._

"...Thanks," he stuttered. He stuffed the last of the chocolate bar in his mouth. "Do you need help lying down again?"

"What?" His words were muffled by chocolate, and didn't make any sense at all.

Asriel giggled, wiping chocolate off of his snout. "Sorry... Do you need help lying down?" he repeated.

"Of course," they smirked. "I still can't move." It didn't hurt to move as much now, but it was still aching and took a massive amount of effort.

"Okay." He slowly eased them off of the wall with the arm he had wrapped around them, and then shuffled them forward so he could gently lower them back down. It was a strain on his soft arms to prevent himself from just dropping Frisk's head onto the pillow, which was easily visible through his tense facial expression. Once Frisk had been carefully set down upon their back, Asriel flopped down next to them and stared at the ceiling.

"Thanks a lot, Az."

"It's okay."

Frisk didn't really feel like watching TV. Despite what they had thought, lying in bed all day was kind of boring. It was too early for them to fall asleep, and still too difficult to get up and move. Luckily, they had a living stuffed animal beside them to make it less so. Once again, they were both lying down together on their backs and staring upwards. 

"I'm bored again."

"Do you wanna go back to sleep?"

"Az... It's like, not even lunchtime."

"Oh. Then what should we do?" he pondered. "You can't move, unless I carry you... And I'm not that strong..."

They couldn't think of anything to do that didn't involve any sort of moving, so TV it was. If they had any books in their room, they would have made Asriel read them a story.

"Uhh... I guess we have to watch TV. I can't do anything else."

Asriel suddenly looked worried. "Frisk... What if you don't get better? What if Gaster's spell lasts forever, what if he comes back and..." He was sobbing for some reason, his words being broken by sad whimpers.

_Aww... I wanna hug him, Frisk._

_I know._

"Asriel, I'm gonna be fine. I feel a little better already, and soon Gaster won't be a problem anymore. Please don't be upset." His uncalled for sobbing slowed down and he rubbed his eyes. Frisk instinctively reached over to crush him in a loving hug, but let out yet another sharp cry of discomfort and flopped back down. "Ugh... Give me a hug, Az," they groaned. It was frustrating not being able to move.

"Okay," he said happily. His mood swung drastically at the request, and Frisk's frustration was quickly dissipated as they felt themselves being pressed into the young boss monster's ridiculously soft chest.

"Why were you so upset all of a sudden?"

"...Flowey stuff," he said as briefly as he could. It was a poor description of why he had suddenly become so worried, but Frisk understood. It'd take years for him to get over all the stuff he's seen and done. Part of successfully doing that would be getting him to talk about it more, but Frisk just couldn't bear to see him genuinely upset like he is when he thinks about Flowey. "Sorry." 

"Don't be sorry," they reassured. "You can be a cry baby as much as you want."

"...Thanks." They turned to face the TV again as their brother released the hug. It was kind of hard to watch the screen, but they weren't really interested in it anyway. They just loved spending time with him; after all, they'd gone through so much to save him, and this was basically its reward. 

* * *

 

A few hours of mediocre television later, Frisk spontaneously began to feel a lot better. They gave their fingers and toes a few test wriggles before shuffling their arms and hips about. It still felt a little aching, but they excitedly let Asriel know by crushing him in a tight hug and causing him to let out a surprised squeak.

"Are you better now?" he bubbled.

Frisk nodded and sat up. "I think so."

"Cool! Wanna do something else? This is really boring."

"Sure! Do you wanna read a book, or draw something, or..."

 _No!_ _I'm tired of this shi-_

_Chara!_

"Chara and I were thinking of doing something that involves moving."

"Oh... Well, let's get out of bed, then!" They both realized just how long they'd been lying down for. They eagerly hopped out of the bed and Asriel grabbed their sibling's hand and dragged them out of their room downstairs. Undyne was sitting on the couch with Sans watching yet another wrestling program. Sans didn't look too interested, but Undyne appeared insanely hyped up.

"HEY, PUNKS!" She roared, loud enough to physically move the literally inseparable siblings backwards.

"heya. afternoon." The children both nodded and hopped up onto the couch. "you feel better, frisk?"

"I think so. I can move, but it still hurts."

"that's alright."

"You know... I would normally say you're just sissies making up excuses to be lazy like Sans... But from what Alphys told me, that's uhh... kinda scary. You're actually pretty tough if you two put up with that! Me, personally? I would've MURDERED that guy!" She grinned and ruffled both of their heads. Frisk's hair immediately reverted back to its normal state, while Asriel's fur was still too short to move. "By the way, I lied. You're still pansies!"

"You know what happened?" 

"Yeah! Alphys tells me everything. If she keeps secrets from me..." Ripples bulged out of her blue forearms as she clenched her fists tightly, growling through her massive teeth. Neither of them could tell if she was genuinely angry or if she was just putting on an act. That pretty much described Undyne's personality though, so they didn't worry about it. "She gets suplexed through the couch!"

Frisk raised an eyebrow. "Through?"

"Yeah! Then Asgore has to buy us a better one! Isn't that AWESOME? I should do it more often!"

Frisk twitched at the sudden uproar of noise. "...Where is Alphys?"

"Uhh, Mettaton came for a visit after so rudely abandoning us, and she's, uhh, 'rewiring' him or some nerdy sh-stuff like that."

"Oh."

Sans turned his head to face everyone. "so, how was it?"

"Was what?" The siblings looked at him with confusion.

"i imagine one-sided cuddling isn't too enjoyable," he chortled.

"Ugh!" The two blushing children hopped off the couch in embarrassment and went into the kitchen.

"Cuddling? Gross! You two are wusses!" Undyne boomed throughout the house as the siblings left before leaning over to Sans. "You gotta admit though... They're pretty cute."

"that's incredibly unlike you to say," he jested. "is that what alphys calls 'shipping'?"

"What???" She frowned. "I don't know??? No??? I like giant swords and muscles, okay??? I'm only saying that because I'm their personal bodyguards for life!" She seemed threatened by Sans's comment, and strode over to the kitchen.

"Hey, punks!" She noticed their faces were still bright red and they were digging around in the fridge. "Wanna go to the park with me? Papyrus is gone, and I'm BORED." Frisk beamed, keen to do something physical after being bedridden for so long.

Asriel seemed anxious. "Uhh..." 

"I'm not gonna train you, pansies! I just wanna do something FUN!" Before they could confirm or nod or make any sort of indication that they were willing to go, Undyne effortlessly picked them up and sat them upon her shoulders. The kids looked around the kitchen, admiring the view from so high up. Her shoulders weren't quite park benches like Asgore's, but they were wide enough to support one of them each. Undyne dashed out of the kitchen, ignoring the extra weight on her shoulders, and out the door.

"BACK LATER!" She said as she slammed the door behind her, before beginning to walk down the path and past Asgore's house.

It was very bright outside. There were no clouds, and the sun was high in the sky. Sun beams reflected intensely off of the white pavement, causing the two children to shield their eyes. Undyne didn't seem to mind them. Frisk looked around; from up here, they would be at least eye to eye with Asgore. All of their friends seemed to tower over them, except for Alphys and Sans who were only a couple of inches greater in height. Asriel happened to be the exact same size, and he admired the view from up here as well. They could see through the windows of all the houses around them, and clearly above all of the fences and hedges. From afar, they noticed the park. It wasn't spectacular; a huge patch of grass with various plants and trees scattered about with a playground in the middle. Upon seeing it, Undyne grinned and began sprinting. Frisk and Asriel had to grab onto Undyne's huge arms to prevent themselves from being sent flying by the gusts of wind battering their faces.

Undyne crouched down and the two children hopped off. She didn't even seem tired from her sudden athletic outburst. "Uhh... You two go do kiddy stuff on the slide or something," she said. "I'll be over there!" She pointed towards a set of horizontal bars raised off of the ground. Those didn't seem like any fun, so Frisk dragged Asriel over to the slide. Undyne was already at the weird bar things and seemed to be pulling herself up and down on them, grunting every time she went up.

"What is she doing?"

"I don't know," they muttered. "She's got an endless supply of energy that she needs to release."

Asriel frowned, not understanding what that meant. "...Frisk, what is this? It doesn't look like fun..." He stared at the strange wooden scaffold; it had a weird cone on the top which reminded him of Asgore's castle in the underground. There was a weird-looking plastic ramp sticking out the side and a ladder on the other side.

_Aww... That's so sad._

Chara interrupted, and rather than laughing at his brother, tried to genuinely help him. He dragged him over to the ladder and pointed up. "Climb up there."

"Okay..." He reluctantly started climbing up. He had never climbed a ladder before, so it took him a while and Chara was trying desperately not to laugh at him stumbling. He quickly approached behind him once he was all the way up.

"Now, sit down on that thing," he said, pointing at the plastic ramp that led down to the ground. "And slide down it!" The young boss monster timidly sat down at the edge of the slide, clutching the edges tightly out of fear. Slowly, he lessened the grip on the sides and began moving down the ramp at a rather comical speed.

"Come on, Az! Let go of the sides!" Chara cheered. "You're going too slow!"

Asriel didn't let go and slowly descended upon the ground as he reached the end of the slide. He looked terrified, which Chara thought was adorable after letting out a disappointed sigh.

"...Okay. It's fine. You don't have to if you don't want to." Chara jumped onto the slide and zipped down in a tenth of the time it took Asriel to do so. Frisk loved seeing him so happy, so decided to let him keep going. "Wanna go on that thing?" He pointed over to another set of horizontal bars, except there were several of them in a parallel configuration and they weren't raised as high off of the ground. The pair walked up to it, but Asriel looked as confused as ever.

"What is that?"

"You grab on to the bars and swing across. Here, I'll help you up." Chara crouched down and grabbed his brother around the waist, then lifted him up high enough to grab the bars. Asriel was really light, so he didn't have much trouble holding him there. "Grab them!" Chara let go, hoping he'd grabbed on to something, and watched his brother dangling helplessly from the blue iron bars. "Grab the next one!"

"Help! I don't like this!" he squealed.

"Come on..." He noticed his brother's grip loosening, and before he could do anything about it, Asriel fell off and hit the ground with a soft thud as he let go of the bars.

"Ow..."

"Oh no!" Chara quickly rushed over and picked him up, squeezing the air out of him in a panicked fit of protective instinct. "Are you okay? I'm sorry, I shouldn't have made you..."

"I'm fine, Chara," he insisted.

"Okay, but we're going home. I'm not letting you get hurt!" Asriel didn't protest as Chara literally carried him off to Undyne. "Undyne! Let's go!"

"Huh? Why? I'm not even finished with my workout! We were here for like five minutes!"

"Asriel fell and hurt himself." Asriel frowned. It didn't hurt too much and he was fine staying here, but he liked how Chara was being so protective of him, so he didn't say anything.

"Uhh... okay? He doesn't look hurt," she stammered with a frown, which slowly shifted into a huge toothy grin. "But you guys are crybabies, so he probably is! You owe me!" She began walking down the footpath, not offering to carrying the children this time.

"Chara, do you, uhh... want to put me down?"

"No," he said firmly.

"Why not?"

"Because you're hurt."

Now that he thought about it, his leg sort of hurt from the fall, but it wasn't that serious. "B-But... Isn't it uncomfortable? And tiring?"

"It's fine." Frisk couldn't quite describe it, but Chara seemed to enter this extremely protective state whenever his brother was in even the slightest of danger. He probably got it from Toriel. Asriel didn't mind being carried like this, so he tried to relax. Chara had to lean to the side to see past the furry child directly in front of him. Thankfully, Undyne didn't comment on it.

"Hmm..." Undyne squinted and put a palm over her brow to block the overbearing sunlight. "Huh?? Oh no."

"What's wrong?"

"Ugh! That silly robot is out!" She pointed down the street to where Alphys's house was now visible in the distance. There was a figure outside performing various poses.

"Don't you like him?" Chara inquired. He didn't mind talking to Undyne for some reason, perhaps it was because of her close relationship to Asgore. She didn't even know he was there anyway, so it wouldn't hurt.

"He's quite up himself..." she hesitated. "But he's Alphy's greatest invention, soo... He's _alright_ , I guess." She began walking faster. Chara looked ridiculous trying to keep up.

"Chara, I love you, but... can you put me down? Please?" Chara huffed and lowered his brother to the ground, flushing as he realized that he was being sort of clingy.

"Sure... Sorry about that."

"It's okay. Thanks for helping me." His tiny fangs popping up through his smile was enough to reassure him, but the sound of metallic thumping quickly broke the moment.

"DARLINGS! It's been so long since I've blessed you with my presence!" Undyne reluctantly accepted a high-five from Mettaton, who then proceeded to hug the two children. His metal arms were rough and uncomfortable, so it didn't last very long.  "You must have been dying without me," he boasted. "But I'm here! There is no need to cry anymore." He spun around on his heel and kicked his leg out spectacularly.

Chara couldn't stand him, so gave control back to Frisk. "How come you're back?"

"Because! The great Dr. Alphys requested me for scheduled maintenance. However, it is with deep sorrow I inform you that I will be leaving in a few days." None of them really cared; he was all over television anyway. "In the meantime... Wait a second." He spun back around and faced the two children. "Who are you?" He stared at the small furry monster whom he had just hugged.

"My name is Asriel," he said shyly.

"Asriel, huh?" A strange expression crossed Mettaton's face, but he quickly wiped it off. "Are you... Asgore's child?" He nodded fervently. "Ah. My name is Mettaton! It is a pleasure to meet you." He extended his arm out and shook the child's hand. Undyne scoffed and rolled her eyes at the obvious disrespect.

"Thanks, Mettaton," she grumbled. "C'mon, punks. Let's go."

"Goodbye, darlings! I will have to show you my latest dance moves sometime!" He blew a kiss at them which Undyne quickly dodged before strutting back into Alphys's house. 

"So, you really don't like him, do you?" Frisk said, noticing her displeasure with the glamorous robot.

"Yup. That's why I'm with you guys. Alphys doesn't want me to, uhh, impale that heap of glittery scrap metal with a spear." Asriel smiled, knowing he has such a tough person as a personal bodyguard.

"Oh." They all crossed the road and Undyne burst into the house. Sans was still on the couch, watching some odd fast-food review program. A portly man wearing button-up shirt with rising flames around the bottom was chowing down on a hot dog.

"Hey, Sans!"

"back so soon?"

"Yup! One of these babies hurt themselves and the other one couldn't stand it!"

Sans chuckled. "ah. i understand." The three of them hopped up onto the couch. It fit them all nicely. 

"Jesus, Sans. What kind of trash are you watching?" Undyne scanned around for the remote.

"this guy's a  _bone_ afide fast food expert. he gets paid to eat food that has ketchup on it. isn't that amazing?"

"That's ridiculous. It's just a TV show. You can't make a living off of eating fast food, let alone  _be_ a fast food expert."

"whatever it is, i want in on it. here, catch." Sans pulled the remote out from below the couch with blue magic and flung it at Undyne. "your turn, heh. i'll be in my room." Sans vanished.

"What the fu-heck?" She looked down at Frisk, noticing Sans had removed himself from the room. "How does he do that? Why did he go? What?" They shrugged, and Undyne sighed before turned back to the screen, flicking through channels. They consisted mostly of Mettaton re-runs.

Chara turned to face his brother. "Are you alright?" he whispered.

"...Yes." He couldn't find it in himself to get annoyed by his brother's doting. "But my leg kind of hurts," he confessed. His confession made Chara pull him in with one arm. He saw it as them returning the favour after he took care of them by helping them eat chocolate, but it wasn't really necessary... He liked it, though, so didn't complain and sank into his sibling's side.

"UGH! I'm sick of this damn robot!" She conjured a glowing blue spear and held it above her head. "NGAAAHHHH!"

"Undyne, no!" Frisk shouted.

"Why not?" She growled back at them.

"It's just... unnecessary?"

"NO IT ISN'T!" She got ready to hurl the spear through the television.

"As my personal bodyguard, I order you to stop!" Chara interrupted. His brother seemed terrified and clutched him tightly. Frisk almost slapped him mentally for being so rude, but Undyne seemed to calm down.

"Heh. That's cute. Alright." The spear vanished. "But I still hate that robot."

"That's okay. Thank you for not destroying the TV."


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really enjoyed writing the last chapter, so after this I guess the fluff levels are only gonna go up from here once Gaster's out of the way.

Having gone through all of the one hundred available channels at least three times over while Chara, Asriel, and Frisk just sat there watching, Undyne finally settled upon some weird human talk show. None of the children were interested in it, but there wasn't anything to do. Their parents were gone, which they found very strange especially since Chara had just revealed himself to them, so there were no delicious pies or magic training sessions to enjoy.

"Hey, Undyne?" She sat lazily with one leg crossed over the other and her arms spread wide along the back of the couch.

"Hmm?"

"If Alphys tells you everything..." Frisk began asking carefully, not wanting to trigger another violent episode resulting in the walls being pierced. "...Then you know why Mettaton is here, right?"

She sighed. "Yeah. She wants him to sort out this Gaster sh-stuff. Why do you ask?" Asriel flinched, causing Chara to instinctively pull him closer.

Frisk still wasn't entirely filled in. They and Alphys had a very brief conversation regarding the topic, but they'd already forgotten it.

"So, umm, what's her plan? I forgot."

"Well... Since your parents aren't here, this is the best time to do it. She's gonna contact that Gaster dude causing his form to become more... physical or something? So Mettaton could destroy him? I don't know how that part works. Anyway... She noticed that Gaster only comes for you guys when no one's around to see it. If Alphys isn't mistaken, he'll come to, uhh, do whatever he usually does to you guys tonight. Whatever _that_ involves." A strange expression came across her face and she attempted to hide a laugh. Neither of them knew what was so funny. "Anyway, she hooked up some sort of sensor to Mettaton, and he'll be able to pick up Gaster's presence." Frisk nodded. It seemed straightforward and simple. Deep down inside, they wanted to help Gaster in some way, but Sans had told them that Gaster didn't have a soul and his non-physical body wouldn't be able to accept one and Alphys told them he doesn't want anything but for them to be dead, so they tried not to think about it too much. Whenever they did, Chara would often seem baffled by Frisk's pacifist ideas.

"Does Mettaton know about this?"

"Uhh, no. That leads me to the part you might not like," she said sternly. "Mettaton will know when Gaster's here, but he won't do anything about him unless he attacks you, 'cuz god forbid anyone hurts his precious fans." The children gulped. "I don't like it either, but Alphys says that reprogramming him and forcing him to do it is too ' _risky'_." Undyne's solemn demeanour quickly brightened up into a toothy grin. "But he can't kill ya! You guys are tough as nails! What are his attacks, anyway? Sissy blue magic spells like Papyrus? THAT'S NOTHING!" She took a moment to settle down. "But, hey. Despite you two being cry babies and whatnot... don't worry about it, okay? Alphys will be over later to explain it better, 'cuz I'm not a total nerdy dork like she is. When it happens, Mettaton will save your butts, and we'll be in the next room! Alright? Save your worrying for later, and enjoy this quality time with your personal bodyguard!" She roared, and gestured for them to watch the TV. The show was still boring.

Frisk was still unsatisfied with the information. What if Gaster used that awful spell on one of them again? He'd made it clear that he doesn't want to kill them because they would just reset everything, but Frisk feared that he would do something worse than simply killing one of them. They found it terrifying that he had the ability to do that. They turned to face their brother, who was still deeply sunk in their side looking rather scared. Frisk got ready to say something comforting, but their phone started ringing. Somehow, it ended up in their pocket. They pulled it out and answered the call.

"Hello, my children!" It was unmistakably Toriel. "How are you all?"

"We're good," they said, not exactly telling the truth.

"That's good! I am so sorry that Asgore and I had to leave you three." She paused for a moment. "Especially you, Chara. Have you three been having fun? Who is taking care of you? Have you eaten?"

Chara missed her motherly love, so took over to interrupt.

"Undyne is taking care of us, and we went to the park! And we haven't eaten yet, but we will."

Toriel giggled. She wasn't quite yet able to recognize the slight differences in Frisk and Chara's voice, so didn't comment on it at all. "That is good. We will see you soon! Goodbye. I love you all!"

"Bye!" Frisk placed the phone up to Asriel's mouth.

"Bye," he said timidly. He was still worried about something and was trying not to show it through his voice.

Frisk ended the call, noticing his brother's expression. "Az, what's wrong?"

"I'm scared, Frisk. What if-"

Naturally, Chara interrupted him with a lung-evacuating hug, causing him to release a sound similar to a squeaky toy being squished.

"Nothing will happen."

"B-But-"

"Please don't worry." He continued holding the soft boss monster, refraining from letting go because his delicate, perfectly white fur was so pleasant to bury his body in. "I won't let you get hurt. Not again. I promise." He felt a smile spread across Asriel's face, but didn't let go.

Undyne broke her immersion with the television show to see what they were doing, before revealing a huge toothy grin. "Don't tell Sans I said this, but you two are CUTE!"

* * *

 Chara had insisted that Frisk install a game on their once-ancient phone that Alphys had upgraded, and hadn't stopped playing it since. He wouldn't even let Frisk use their arms anymore so he could continue playing. It was an odd sight; Frisk had been carrying about whatever tasks they had in mind while their head was tilted slightly downward and their arms were locked in the same position the whole time, fingers tapping furiously. Now, they were sitting upon their bed waiting for Alphys to arrive. Asriel was sitting beside them staring at the screen.

"Chara, why do you like this game so much?" Frisk finally asked.

"I like seeing how many points I can get." Every time he tapped the screen, the weird object he was controlling would move to avoid obstacles. If he didn't tap at the right moment, he'd run right into them.

"Why? It looks boring."

"It's not boring! Try it!" He finally let Frisk use their arms.

"How do I play?"

"Tap the screen to dodge stuff," he explained. "You should know how to play! I've been playing for the past thirty minutes!" Asriel giggled at their argument. The game started, and Frisk lost instantly.

"What was that?" Chara questioned, baffled that someone could lose so quickly. "Ugh! You can dodge attacks from every single monster in the underground, but not those?" He scoffed.

"Chara," Frisk noticed their tone of voice was having a strange effect on their eternal bodily co-pilot and he did seem rather flustered, so they started speaking more endearingly to calm him down. They would have to do it more often. "You're really good at this game. Way better than I am." 

It took a moment for Chara to regain composure and realize that Frisk was doing it on purpose. "...Frisk." Asriel continued staring down at the screen. "Here, Az. Try it!" He handed him the phone and watched him try to hold it with his furry paws. Before he even knew what was going on, the game was over. "Huh. You're just as bad as Frisk!" 

"I didn't even get a chance!"

"Yeah, well, I'm bored of that game, anyway!" He stuffed the phone in his pocket and gave Frisk full control of their arms. A loud voice echoed from downstairs calling them various synonyms for "cry-babies", so they both got up and went downstairs. They quickly reached the bottom skidded to a halt, almost falling down the stairs as they somehow ended up trying to race each other without even thinking.

"H-Hey, guys..." Alphys stammered. Sans was nowhere to be seen, and Undyne was still on the couch. Despite her being tall enough that she needed to duck under doorframes, the huge chartreuse cushions had more than enough room for her to lie horizontally across them.

"Hi, Alphys."

"S-So... You remember what I said, r-right?" Frisk nodded. Asriel was standing rather close to them. "M-Mettaton's coming soon... T-Think of it as a s-sleepover. U-Undyne and I are gonna s-s-sleep... Here!" She awkwardly blurted out and Undyne snorted. "M-Mettaton will s-sleep on the floor... S-Sans will be- Okay, I'm sorry. Th-that's not important. I c-contacted Gaster, a-and he u-used my contact method to further his physical f-form. W-With its new power, it's g-guaranteed he's gonna c-come after you guys." She began speaking much quicker. "N-Now, M-Mettaton should be able to d-destroy him. As for you g-guys... G-Gaster will need to attack you. B-Because of Mettaton's p-personality chip, that's the o-only way he'll i-intervene, and I c-can't reprogram it w-without risking serious d-damage to his circuitry..."

"All it is really," Undyne interrupted. "Is that when that creep comes after you, Mettaton's gonna blow him up and everything'll be better! Simple! Wish I could just stab a spear through his head or something, but Alphys said that won't work."

"R-Right. Umm. Yeah, about that... D-destroying Gaster's physical form will only cause him to revert to a n-nonphysical one. H-He'll still be around, but he'll go back to the way he was before. U-Unless, another reset happens, he'll come back."

"Yeah! All that nerd stuff! Do you understand! 'Cuz I don't!" Undyne's boisterous and cheerful personality worked wonders to lighten up the situation for Frisk. All they were worried about was the "Gaster has to attack you" part. Why couldn't Mettaton see past his self-righteousness and just do it? Why couldn't Alphys detach this particle cannon from him and use it herself? They had so many questions, but from experience Alphys seemed to know what she was talking about so they decided to nod instead.

"So... Is he gone or not?" Chara asked, trying to imitate Frisk's voice. Upon remembering how it sounded, he trailed off and smiled causing Undyne to look at him with a baffled expression.

 _Chara, that's so cute._ Dismissing the seriousness of the situation, Frisk observed what he was trying to do and Chara immediately backed out of their body in embarrassment.

"He w-will be. I guess. I-I won't w-worry you with all the d-details and t-technical stuff that S-Sans and I have been d-discussing. B-But to answer your question, yes."

"Hey, Alphys?" Frisk spoke up.

"Yeah?"

"Thanks a lot. For helping us with all this stuff."

"N-No problem... It's the l-least I could do for the person who helped b-break the barrier and free monster kind..."

"Ugh! Enough of this nerd crap! It's not even that big of a deal!" Undyne suddenly boomed, causing Frisk to flinch and Asriel's floppy ears to twitch. "Where the heck is Sans?"

Suddenly, Sans was standing in front of the television. Despite blocking Undyne's view, it took her almost two seconds to fully process the image.

"Sans, what the heck? How do you do that?"

"D-Don't ask. He doesn't t-tell anyone," Alphys muttered.

"indeed, however what i will reveal, is..." He watched with a grin as Alphys leaned closer to hear and Undyne sat up from her reclining position. "it's magic."

"O-of course," the scientist groaned. "Yes. W-We know it's magic, but how??"

"a true magician never reveals his secrets." He turned to face the two children. "you two look scared. trust me, there's no need to be. mettaton will blast him out of this world before he actually hurts you. literally. and that'll be that."

 Asriel's expression was that of worry and Frisk's was simply blank.

 

* * *

 

Conspicuously, sleep was not going to happen tonight. They waited and waited for Gaster to appear, and hoped his "attack" wouldn't be too bad and that Mettaton would conclusively get rid of him. Chara was very quiet, but not asleep. They were cosily entombed beneath a wad of blankets borrowed from the unused bed across from them, gazing at the ceiling as if it were covered in stars. Had the thought of one of them being possibly having serious wounds inflicted upon them by Gaster not been plaguing their minds, they would have fallen asleep instantaneously within the silky cocoon. 

"F-Frisk, aren't you scared?"

"Sort of," they admitted. "But... We're gonna be okay. That's all that matters."

"W-What if we get hurt? Really bad?" The boss monster whimpered.

"Yeah... I'm kinda scared about that, too. Try not to think about it, okay?" They paused for a moment. "Just... When he appears... Try to ignore him, okay? Mettaton will stop him before he hurts us. You can hug me if you need to." they stammered bashfully. Gaster would probably think they're pathetic, grabbing each other and whimpering, but that didn't matter at all.

"Th-thanks, Frisk." The idea made him feel a lot better. "By the way... Even after Gaster's gone and all the nightmares stop..." He began blushing. "C-Can we... D-Do you want to..." Asriel felt Frisk nod against the pillow. They knew he was talking about the sleeping in the same bed thing; they'd originally started doing that because of nightmares and whatnot. By now it had become a habit, and not one they ever intended to break until they started getting too large to share the same bed. Even then, they'd probably end up asking Toriel for a larger one. They both continued staring blankly upward. It was pitch black and they couldn't even see each other, but the ceiling provided a piece of tranquil scenery to distract them from the calm before the storm.

After a good ten minutes of apprehensive silence, a tell-tale distortion resounded between the walls. It was like television static, but deeper. Frisk did their best to stare at the ceiling and pay no attention to him, but Asriel's composure wasn't as strong as Frisk's and he hid his face in their shoulder. Behind the dreaded distortion, a voice began to speak. As the distortion got louder, Frisk had to suppress Chara's festering exasperation, imploring for him to wait for Mettaton.

_Please, Chara. Relax._

"I'm back," it exclaimed. "And for this... you have none other than Dr. Alphys to thank. She keeps trying to contact me _._ Unfortunately for you, her sub-par technological abilities have led to numerous backdoors of which her desperate attempts granted me access to." Gaster began preparing a magic attack but quickly stopped, startled by the sound of metal hammering against the ground.

The door burst open and light spilled into the room, exposing the robed skeleton as well as the two terrified children. "Darlings? I felt something wrong up here, but everyone else was asleep." Mettaton peeked around the door and raised an eyebrow, eyeing up Gaster. "What have we here? Paparazzi?" He stared for a few seconds more, then frowned at him. "My, my. Normally, I would be flattered. But, here I am, spending time with whom I consider to be my extended family..." He put his self-righteous attitude and narcissism aside for a brief moment to stand up to this "celebrity stalker". "And you have the nerve to enter our home uninvited? I strongly recommend you see yourself out, dear."

Gaster cackled, the horrifying sound piercing the children's ears. "Alphys's greatest invention, hmm? What a joke." He turned around and faced the two children, raising his palm. An aura of blue pulsated around the trembling siblings.

"...Darling, what exactly are you doing?" Mettaton stood at the doorway, observing what was happening.

"You heap of scrap metal. Did Alphys program you to be so pretentious?" He clenched his palm and they felt the blue magic constrict them tightly, requiring Chara to reassure them that this wasn't the immobilizing magic he'd used previously. "I've made the decision to kill them. Of course, they'll just reset, but once they do, an anomaly like this... could not possibly subsist. At least, not outside of this specific timeline. Why don't you go tell Alphys, 'dear'?" Asriel tried desperately to ignore what was going on, Frisk held on to their hopes, and Chara wasn't scared at all but was ready to kill someone. 

Mettaton equipped a furious look, something you'd never see him do for trepidation of damaging his immaculately-chiseled face. "Hey. Whoever you are. You think I'm gonna let you get away with hurting my biggest fans? Absolutely not." The glamorous robot began his transformation without further ado. His right arm detached, letting out a puff of steam, and a series of metal plates elongated out from the aperture to compose a glowing barrel-shaped fixture mounted upon his elbow as whirring sounds filled the room. His shoulder blades detached and huge gothic pauldrons erupted out to take their place as holographic wings sprung out from beneath them. He was now about as tall as Asgore, yet slender and far more flexible. "How about I show you precisely why I am Dr. Alphys's greatest invention?"

Gaster relinquished the ethereal grip and frowned, turning around to face the transmuted robot. Not acknowledging his new form he raised his palm at him, endeavouring to launch him out of the room with telekinesis.

"Oh my. Blue magic, huh? How cute." Mettaton raised his barrel-ended arm at Gaster as cogs began whirring and deep, electrical hums rised in volume. Its opening became brighter and brighter as Gaster just stared deeply into the light, intrigued.

"What is that? Alphys never showed me it. I must admit, it is probably due to the horrific craftsmanship of that metal." The weapon wasn't spectacular-looking; it was just a rounded extension of Mettaton's metallic upper arm with an opening that glowed fiercely with pulses of some sort of unknown energy. Frisk and Asriel pulled the blankets over their heads as the weapon finished charging up.

"Looks like Alphys didn't need to work on the defenses after all." The weapon fired with a vociferous, technological growl that almost certainly would have woken up the entire house. An astronomically immense white beam lashed out from its opening, striking Gaster directly in the chest. The robed skeleton didn't seem to react as his virtually-tangible body was mercilessly torn to shreds and scattered about by an effulgent surge of energy coursing through him. The beam illuminated the room, but neither of the children peeked up from beneath the blankets.

"I see..." He nonchalantly turned around to look down upon the lump of blankets, ignoring the pillar of light that was currently obliterating him fraction by fraction. "Why is it that you are given a second chance, after all your homicidal shenanigans, yet I am left on the outside to rot? I guess the magnitude of my mistakes must somehow exceed yours?" His garbled voice trailed off as the last of his physical form was evaporated by Mettaton's ferociously powerful cannon. Finally, Frisk lowered the blankets below their eyes.

Mettaton stumbled around for a moment. "Ah... You've been a fantastic audience, darlings. I'm sorry my glamour carries such consequences, but I need to power down for a moment." He walked downstairs, calling out to Alphys for "maintenance". Frisk threw the blankets off of them and looked around. Just like that, with minimal damage dealt to either of their bodies and in so little time, Gaster was gone. However, they jolted with fright as yet another skeleton stood right beside them, causing Asriel to frantically release his death grip out of shock.

"woah, it's just me. heh. hmm... wasn't expecting him to go all emotional like that at the end, huh? welp, he's gone. you know, pal, gaster and i are actually related." Frisk had already guessed this, since they were both skeletons and utilizers of blue magic. "but... don't feel guilty. i came to terms with him dying ages ago. it must've sucked for him, seeing you guys all happy... i won't get into that." Sans thought Gaster had some substance there. While Gaster had died trying to make major scientific advancements for monster kind, Asriel's death was the result of him being coaxed into a murderous scheme. Sans knew that's not really how it was, though. Asriel was a child who had his future stolen from him and replaced with a lifetime of hatred; probably worse than just dying like Gaster did. "anyway... he's gone for good. really... there's not much else to worry about. alphys is fixing up mettaton right now, tori n' asgore n' pap will be back in a couple of days, undyne will stop being such a fuss once that robot leaves... she actually slept through that blast. she's really reluctant to see that guy, isn't she? well, to say the least, it'll be that 'happy ending', won't it?"

Frisk nodded, still shaken up a bit from what just happened. It was unspectacular, to say the least. They were expecting Gaster to either mortally wound one of them or incapacitate one of them for the rest of their lives, but were thankful that that wasn't the case. They yawned, and tried to go to sleep. Now that Gaster was gone, it was like one of Undyne's massive weights had been lifted off of their shoulders. Sans understood that the human child was probably really tired, so he courteously walked over to the door and closed it, before teleporting to the other side. It was one of those strange quirky things Sans always did without explanation.

"...Is that it, Frisk? Is he gone?"

"Yeah." They weren't sure if that would be the end of their problems, however. It just seemed too... easy. And sudden. And unlike anything else they'd ever had to work for. "Glad he didn't hurt us." They rebuilt the fortress of blankets around each other again. "Chara? Are you alright?"

"Yep," he responded.

"J-Just like that? He's gone?"

"Yes, Asriel. He's gone. No more Gaster. Let's go to sleep, okay?" Chara pulled his brother in under his arm and closed his eyes, relishing in his lethargically soft fur.

 

 


	17. Chapter 17

In front of him, Asriel was dying. Just like last time, his soft limbs were slowly transmuting into thorny vines and flowers bloomed from various spots around his head as he made terrified sounds. Chara was trying to refrain from becoming overwhelmingly terrified as he pried his eyes away from the transformation and covered his ears. Although it was gruesome and unsettling, he knew it wasn’t real. Soon, they would wake up and Asriel would be fast asleep in front of them without a single flower petal or leaf in sight and with Gaster gone, that had also reduced the number of problems he has to deal with significantly and there really was not that much to be worried about anymore. Despite that, he was still panicking fiercely due to what was taking place right beside him in this nightmare, and that would probably continue after he woke up. He was facing the other direction, whimpering and trying to wake up.

Chara suddenly darted upright and launched himself out of the bed and onto the floor, sobbing with terror. Indeed, it was just a nightmare; Asriel was still there facing the wall and snoring, but it didn’t reassure him that much. He shuffled backwards across the carpet, panting frantically, and then harshly pressed his back against the side of the unused bed across the room. It was still pitch black, so he didn’t bother looking around and instead brought his knees up to his chest and tried to calm down, rocking back and forth slowly as he tried to match his rapid hyperventilating with each swing of his body.

Once Chara had relaxed to the point where he was able to process Frisk’s words, they began speaking to him. The memory of his nightmare was clear to them both, so Frisk tried distracting him from the rather disturbing images flashing in their mind.

 _Good morning,_ they joked. It was sometime near midnight.  _Are you alright?_

“Mmm,” he grumbled, the vision of his brother dying still fresh in his mind.

 _Is that a yes or a no?_ Chara didn’t respond and seemed upset.

“Chaaaraaa,” they said delightfully, dragging out the vowels on purpose to evoke a strange reaction from his lifetime sidekick. They considered humming a tune to make him calm down fully, but he seemed relaxed enough already.

He raised his head off of his kneecaps and giggled. “Stop it,” he chuckled. Frisk noticed he no longer showed any signs of worry or fear.

“Chaaaraaa, can we go back to sleep now?” They spoke even more endearingly to stop his worrying, causing Chara to just sit there and stare blankly into the darkness with a smirk. Chara thought it was strange how Frisk was able to do that; it was like a weakness or flaw in his attitude. Frisk thought it was cute and told him that they would have to do it more often. After a minute or so of staring, Chara stood up with a huff and crawled back into their bed, laying on his back and staring up into the black abyss that was their ceiling. Their eyes still hadn’t adjusted to the darkness. Although Frisk’s body was almost identical to his, his eyes were naturally open wider than Frisk’s, but he wasn’t sure how much that mattered when it came to how well they saw in the dark.

_Really, though. Are you okay?_

_Yes,_ they lied. They were fine for the most part, but the nightmares he suspected were just culminations of these thoughts he’d been having lately; that one day, Asriel would just disappear. Despite all of Alphys’s sciencey stuff which he was so thankful for, he’d never been able to stop the thought from periodically crossing his mind. He knew it was nonsense, so tried to hide it from Frisk so he wouldn't add on to the list of things they had to worry about.

_Alright._

Chara pursed his lips together with discontent. _…Hey, Frisk?_

_Hmm?_

_Thanks. And for, uhh… you know,_ he stammered. Frisk knew that he was talking about the cute voice thing, but wanted to hear him acknowledge it. _That thing you do with your voice,_ he blurted.

Frisk giggled. _Any time, Chara._

Chara was about to ask Frisk if they could sing him a song sometime, but was too tired.

 

* * *

 

They knocked on the door to Sans's room to say good morning, but he didn't answer. Either he was still asleep or was busy teleporting around random places. Without their parents around, it was kind of empty around here. That left Undyne as the only person who knew how to have fun, as Alphys and Sans's ideas of fun were particularly uninteresting and the only thing Asriel, Frisk, and Chara could think of to do was sit on the couch and watch television all day, which they had all had enough of lately. They all collectively agreed upon messing about in the kitchen and making something interesting for breakfast; Chara made sure to promise that there would be no buttercups involved with the recipe.

"No, Az. It's not gonna make anyone sick! I hope..." He trailed off with a smirk. Asriel looked worried. "I don't mean it like that! Like, what if our cooking is so bad it makes us sick when we eat it?" 

"B-But..."

He extended his hand and gestured for his brother to grab it. "...Asriel. I know cooking and sickness brings back bad memories... But can you try to forget about them? For me? I don't want you to worry anymore."

The monster prince accepted his brother's hand. Holding it made him feel safe. "Yeah... I'm sorry."

"It's okay. Come on!" He dragged them to the kitchen and thought about what he would need to make a cake. "Hmm... Frisk, how do we bake a cake?"

"Well first, you'll need two hands to do it," they jested. Chara reluctantly let go of his brother's furry paw. "And, uhh... We have cake mix, don't we? Just pour it all in a bowl with some milk and stuff and put it in the oven."

Chara nodded and pulled out some MTT-Brand Chocolate Cake Mix from the fridge, and Asriel pulled out a large bowl from one of the cupboards. He ferociously tore open the box and dumped all of its contents into the almost overflowing bowl before he haphazardly splashed some milk on top of the chocolate ooze.

"That looks good to me," he said, before pulling open the oven's door and stuffing the bowl inside. He fiddled with the dials for a bit until the light inside turned on and heat came off the glass. "Now what?"

"We wait, I guess," Asriel suggested. "Mom uses fire magic, so I don't know how long it's gonna take..."

"What? The cooking stuff is over already? That was super boring."

"Well, we could do something else while we wait."

"There isn't anything to do!" Chara groaned.

Asriel smirked and made some tiny flames with his palms. "This is pretty fun," he gloated.

"You know I can't do that!" He was visibly frustrated now, his cheeks turning a shade of red that looked strange on Frisk's tanned face.

"Okay, I'm sorry!" He giggled. "Undyne's pretty fun. Maybe we could call her?"

"If Undyne comes in here and sees us cooking, the house will end up in flames," Frisk interjected to warn their brother of what would certainly happen. "Just saying. And we can't play outside either, because we need to watch the oven."

"Hmm... We could play hide and seek in here!"

"That won't work," they laughed.

"Well, why not?"

"See for yourself. Close your eyes." Frisk crawled beneath the table. "Do you know where I am?"

"Yeah... I can feel where your soul is. Why?"

"That's why hide and seek won't work, silly!" Frisk crawled out from under the table.

Asriel pouted with disappointment and walked over to the couch. He patted the spot beside him, gesturing for his human siblings to sit. Chara climbed up beside the furry monster, the two of them taking up not even a tenth of the available space. Chara aggressively leaned on Asriel's shoulder, sinking his full body weight into his arm as the boss monster pulled his arm around his sibling in response.

"Now what do we do?" Chara grumbled, his face considerably close to Asriel's floppy ear.

"Uhh... I don't know. I just wanted to sit down."

"That's the most boring thing you could possibly do," he smirked. "But this is nice." They sat like that for a while, appreciating each other's company. Somehow, leisurely cuddling each other without saying a word served well to pass the time, but the moment was soon interrupted by the smell of something burning.

"Umm... Chara?" Asriel nudged his shoulder up and down. "I think the cake is ready."

He darted upright and rushed over to the kitchen, pulling open the oven door. The cake wasn't quite yet in flames, but it looked very close to being. The bowl they had used looked charred around the edges and he wondered why they used a bowl to make a cake in the first place. He grabbed a tea towel and pulled the hot bowl from the oven as his brother switched it off after him. The caked looked very sad. It was basically a huge lump of chocolate overflowing from the bowl with bubbling patches of evaporating milk on top. Frisk thought Undyne would be very proud of them, and suggested that next time they would go to Undyne's house to cook.

"Hmm... Let's eat it!" He pulled out a dull knife from the draw and thrusted it in the cake, hacking out irregularly-shaped chunks from the bowl. He grabbed two of the largest hunks of cake and handed one of them to Asriel, who raised an eyebrow as he took it and gave it an inspection. It was definitely chocolate, and it looked edible, so he stuffed it in his mouth with Chara. Their faces scrunched up reflexively at the taste; having added the entirety of the cake mix in such a small bowl, it was now ridiculously sugary and sweet.

"This is disgusting..." Chara admitted, despite having swallowed it rather happily.

"Yeah. Let's throw it out. Mom will be so mad if she finds out..." Asriel looked worried again, but neither of them noticed as Frisk took over to clean up. They scooped up the chocolatey chunks of cake strewn across the counter and threw them in the trash can as well as the entire bowl itself. Toriel would probably ask them later where one of the bowls had gone, so they thought to blame Sans. After all, Sans was an expert at avoiding problems and making up excuses; explaining a missing bowl would be a walk in the park for him.

He dusted off his hands and grabbed his brother's paw once again, this time without even thinking about it. "Well, that was fun! Now what?" 

Asriel giggled. "I don't know, but how come you like holding my hand so much?"

As if to absolve them from their boredom, the taller of the skeleton duo burst into the door before Chara could give a response as he valiantly dangled a keychain above his head, thankfully not making an embarrassing comment regarding the fact that they were definitely holding hands. Strangely, their parents were nowhere to be seen. Papyrus looked very pleased with himself, however,

“YOUR MAJESTIES!” He exclaimed. “IT IS I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS!”

“Hi!” Chara let go of Asriel’s paw and handed their body back to Frisk.

“Howdy!” Asriel said, seeming more confident around his new friends.

“WE ARE IN QUITE THE PREDICAMENT! ALPHYS IS BUSY FIXING METTATON, UNDYNE IS PROBABLY TRAINING RIGHT NOW, AND MY BROTHER IS AN UTTER LAZYBONES AND IS PROBABLY STILL ALSEEP! THERE IS NOT MUCH TO DO, IS THERE?” The children nodded, not understanding some of what he said due to how loudly he spoke. “A-HA! THAT, MY FRIENDS, IS WHERE YOU ARE WRONG! FOR YOU SEE…” He walked closer to them and dangled the keychain closer to them, urging for them to inspect it. “THE GREAT AND ADMIRABLE PAPYRUS HAS ACQUIRED AN AUTOMOBILE OF HIS VERY OWN! NO LONGER MUST I CRUISE WHILE I SNOOZE! FOLLOW ME!” He eagerly dashed outside as the children followed, and pointed at the car parked up in the driveway. It was a five-seater red convertible with a striped spoiler and a grill. The rims were painted bronze and it looked like it could travel very fast. “DO YOU LIKE IT?”

They both nodded, but were wondering where their parents were.

“Where are Mom and Dad?” Frisk finally asked.

“AH. YOU SEE, UPON ACQUIRING THIS VEHICLE… I HAD NO CHOICE BUT TO DISASSOCIATE MYSELF FROM SUCH BORING MATTERS. IT IS SIMPLY TOO GREAT TO DISMISS AN OPPORTUNITY TO DRIVE THIS! THEY ARE STILL DEALING WITH THE HUMANS. IT IS GOING VERY WELL!” His expression quickly inverted. “HOWEVER… THERE IS ONE PROBLEM. A PROBLEM WHICH I FIND TO BE RATHER DEVASTATING.”

Frisk almost groaned with frustration rather than worry or concern. What would try to undo all of their hard work this time?

“YOU SEE, HUMAN. THIS VEHICLE REQUIRES FUEL TO OPERATE. PLENTY OF WHICH I POSSESS." He walked over to the rear of the car and popped open the trunk. Inside were a ridiculous amount of fuel canisters, leaving the children to wonder how it was possible to fit so many in there. "DESPITE ALL OF THIS FUEL... I DO NOT QUITE KNOW HOW TO UTILIZE IT! I AM SORRY. WE WILL HAVE TO WALK TO OUR PLANNED DESTINATION UNTIL ALPHYS SHOWS ME WHAT TO DO WITH THEM!” He attempted to close the overflowing trunk, but had to jump on top of the door and force it down with his bodyweight. Chara was disappointed that it didn't explode as the trunk made a clicking sound.

They sighed with relief. “Where is that? Our planned destination?”

“THE NICE CREAM STORE! ALSO, I HAVE BROUGHT WITH ME SOME ITEMS FROM THE HUMANS! BUT, WE WILL SAVE THOSE FOR LATER!”

Frisk didn't even know that there was a Nice Cream store around here; they just assumed that when Sans had got them some he used one of his inexplicably random quirks to obtain them. Although there were several monsters scattered around here that they recognized, they had almost forgotten about them all. As they walked at a fair distance behind the clumsy skeleton, they would occasionally wave to monsters they saw passing by, but Asriel was too shy to do the same. Aaron flexed back at them, several dogs barked from across the street, and some monsters they recognized from Hotland were outside enjoying the heat. They spotted a Grillby's sign in the distance, providing a possible explanation as to where Sans could be whenever he wasn't in his room. 

Intuitively, Chara grabbed Asriel's paw again as they walked down the path together, leaving Frisk to do all the waving.

"Is that you, Chara?" He whispered, unable to tell which one of his siblings was doing what just by looking at them. The human nodded back. "Oh... Why do you keep doing that? You didn't answer before." Asriel looked down at their clutching palms, acknowledging how he had just suddenly started holding his hand all the time. He didn't question the gesture however; the gesture made him feel safe. He was just curious as to why. 

Chara hated that feeling he always had that Asriel would just disappear one day, only being made worse by his constant nightmares of Asriel dying in some way. It was his way of reassuring himself that he was still there; the fact that he could sense their presence at all times due to their souls being permanently locked together simply wasn't enough for consolation. He didn't feel very talkative, though, nor did he feel like explaining that right now. "I don't know. I like it." There was also the detail that Asriel's paw was really soft. He noticed his brother's fangs pop up as he smiled from the corner of his eye.

"Oh. Me too." Asriel squeezed his brother's hand tighter. He seemed upset about something, but Asriel decided now wasn't the best time to ask him about it.

"AH, THE NICE CREAM ESTABLISHMENT!" Papyrus pointed towards a brightly-blue painted building across the road with a huge sculpture of an ice-cream cone on top. There were several other monsters inside that caused Chara to feel nervous for whatever reason, so he receded further back into Frisk's mind. They didn't let go of Asriel's hand as they strode in with the skeleton in front of them. "WHAT WILL IT BE TODAY?"

"I want chocolate," Frisk demanded. "What do you want, Az?"

"I'll have chocolate as well."

_Is chocolate okay?_

_Of course it is!_

"A NOBLE DECISION!" He walked up to the counter and slapped down some gold. "THREE CHOCOLATE NICE CREAMS, PLEASE!"

The Nice Cream vendor looked down at Frisk and smiled. "It's you! Thanks to you, my business is better than ever! And you broke the barrier, I guess, which is pretty cool." He looked back up at Papyrus and handed him three nice creams. "For you, my friends, these ones are on the house!" 

Papyrus scooped back up his gold and handed two of the nice creams to the children. "HOW GENEROUS OF YOU! MY THANKS, MR. NICE CREAM GUY!"

* * *

"AMONG ALL THE HUMANS I MET, SEVERAL OF THEM WERE GENEROUS ENOUGH TO OFFER ME GIFTS! AND AMONG THESE GIFTS I RECEIVED, I WAS GIVEN JUST THE THING TO LIBERATE YOU FROM THIS BOREDOM!" The skeleton pulled out a box. Frisk and Chara immediately recognized it as one of those silly board games that are only fun if there's an absurd amount of people playing. Chara assumed that Asriel wouldn't remember them, because the board games they had back then were mind-numbingly boring and most of their time was spent snail hunting with Toriel or gardening with Asgore. Despite the fact that it was still a new experience, Asriel thought it looked boring.

_Sheesh, Chara. What DO you like doing?_

_Hmm... Eating chocolate... Killing people..._

_Chara!_

_I'm just joking! About one of those things, at least._

"This is boring," Chara exclaimed. "Did the humans give you anything else?"

"HMM... AH! VIDEO GAMES!" He strode over to the television and started clumsily jamming plugs into sockets. Chara seemed more excited now; video games were probably the only thing they missed from the surface when they fell into the underground. In them he would often pretend the enemies he faced were people he hated; bullies, his fake friends at school, even his own parents.

_Didn't you miss anyone from the surface?_

_Frisk, when Asriel said I hated humanity, he wasn't lying._

Frisk felt stupid for not remembering that.  _What about me? I'm a human,_ they bubbled, not wanting to ruin Chara's mood for the rest of the day.

 _...Frisk, I love you. A lot. Idiot,_ he chuckled, earning him a genuine, wide smile upon their shared visage.

Frisk walked over to the skeleton, who seemed to have figured out the electrical situation. He scratched his cranium for a bit before plugging in yet another wire and putting a round disc in a black box beneath the television and turning around to face the human. "I DO BELIEVE EVERYTHING IS IN ORDER!" Frisk happily climbed up on the couch and Asriel came up beside them. Somehow, they ended up holding hands almost immediately, so Asriel and Chara chose to watch Papyrus play. Frisk hadn't played many video games before falling into the underground. Chara's idea of video games seemed rather macabre, but they were still optimistic about the fun they could provide.

Suddenly, Frisk's stomach rumbled and began aching. _That's weird._ _Chara, do you feel that?_

 _Yeah. It must have been that cake and the nice cream..._ Although it wasn't much, the density of sugar inside both of the foods was probably extremely unhealthy.

"AND, WITHOUT FURTHER ADO, LET US COMMENCE THE VIDEO GAMES!" The television flashed to a menu screen of some sort and Papyrus mashed the buttons before any of them could read what it said. After a short wait, his character was in a gloomy castle setting. It looked very scary. Papyrus began moving around, collecting every single item he could find. "WELL, THIS IS FUN!"

Frisk turned over to their brother. "Hey, do you feel alright?"

"What do you mean?"

"Chara and I feel sick."

"O-Oh..." He tried not to think about buttercups and all of those awful memories he wished he didn't have, and focused on the ache in his stomach. "Me too."

"WHAT KIND OF MONSTER IS THAT?" Papyrus gaped at a strange zombie-like creature emerging from the shadows to attack him. "HMM... IT APPEARS TO BE ATTACKING ME!" He began mashing buttons on the controller, and his in-game character swung their fists at the ghoul as crazily as Papyrus was handling the controller. The children weren't interested in the game at all at the moment.

"Can monsters get sick like that? From eating too much food?" Frisk groaned, hunching over their brother and almost lying ontop of him while still firmly holding his hand.

"Boss monsters can... We're a lot like humans. Most other monsters can just eat forever."

"INDEED THEY CAN! SANS'S PERSONAL RECORD FOR HOT-DOG EATING WAS SEVEN HUNDRED AND NINETY TWO! HE ONLY STOPPED BECAUSE WE RAN OUT! SPEAKING OF SANS, THAT LAZYBONES IS STILL IN HIS ROOM!" Papyrus interrupted. "SAY... ARE YOU TWO SICK?"

"Uhh... I think so."

"OH DEAR! THE VIDEO GAMES MUST WAIT, THEN! WHAT DO YOU NEED?"

"I don't know," they said. Frisk and Asriel hadn't been sick for as long as they could remember, and the last time Chara was sick it wasn't with the kind of illness you could cure at home. "I think we will be fine."

"ARE YOU SURE?" Both of the children nodded. "HOPEFULLY YOU TWO WILL FEEL BETTER BY TOMORROW! IF NOT, YOUR PARENTS SHOULD BE BACK TO CARE FOR YOU!" They both grunted and pulled away from each other's impromptu hugging so they could go upstairs, but Chara simply would not let go of Asriel's soft paw. "I WILL HAVE TO INVITE UNDYNE OVER TO CONTINUE THE FUN! GOOD NIGHT, YOUR MAJESTIES!" 

They entered their room and decided to brush their teeth before they tried to sleep through the stomach pains, giggling at each other's reflection. Frisk's dominant hand was being used to hold Asriel's, so they had to brush painfully slowly. Asriel's other teeth were still too small to bother brushing, so instead he carefully polished each of his tiny fangs individually with the toothbrush.

"Are you ever gonna let go of my hand?" He asked sarcastically; he actually enjoyed it.

"No," Chara spoke through a mouthful of bubbles. "Well, not unless I really have to."

"What about when we go to school?"

"Hmm..." Chara stopped brushing for a brief moment. "Still, no." He mockingly poked his tongue out at Asriel.

"What if Frisk has to do something with both hands?"

"It's Frisk doing it half the time," he amended. "I think they like it as much as I do." 

Asriel smirked at him after spitting out the bubbly mixture of toothpaste. "Why? You seemed upset when I asked you before. I mean, I like it," he trailed off as his cheeks reddened. Chara resisted the urge to pinch them. "A lot. But, it's kinda random. N-Not that I want you to stop..."

Chara giggled at how flustered his brother was. He spat out the toothpaste and dragged him into bed after switching off the lights. They huddled together under the blankets, and found themselves idly cuddling each other without even thinking as they began feeling more and more sick. It wasn't like they could make each other even more ill anyway, so they dragged each other into a warm hug. 

"You ignored his question," Frisk chortled. Chara had become much more of a softy lately.

Chara thought for a moment what to say. He considered lying, but Frisk would know right away and would tell Asriel instantly. "Because," he finally began. "Az, I keep worrying you're gonna... die, or turn back into a flower, or... something." He had to inhale again as his brother squeezed all the remaining air out of his lungs. "Because I keep having nightmares and stuff about it. I know it's dumb, but I can't help it. And... Holding your hand just makes me feel better. I-If you don't like it, that's fine, but..."

"I'm sorry you have to worry about that... But I'm not gonna leave you, okay? Because I don't wanna." He began stuttering. "A-and I like holding your hand."

"Thanks," he muttered into Asriel's shoulder. Both of their stomachs rumbled at the same time.

"Wow, this sucks, huh..."

"We shouldn't have eaten that cake," Frisk said in hindsight. 

"You mean Chara shouldn't have poured all of the cake mix into it?"

"I didn't know!"

"It said on the box," Frisk giggled. "You should have read the instructions."

"Why didn't you tell me to read them?"

"I thought you would've known!"

"That's weird," he said. "You've known me for ages, Frisk! I never read instructions." Asriel giggled. He thought it was funny listening to Frisk basically talk to themselves.

"Hmm... I guess it's my fault then, isn't it?" Frisk gave up trying to argue.

"Of course."

Frisk pouted at Chara's stubbornness. "Hey, Asriel?"

"Yeah, Frisk?"

"Do you have a stomach?" 

He was unprepared for that kind of question. "...What?"

"When you eat food," they began correcting themselves. "Where does it go?"

"Oh. Well, umm, believe it or not... I have no idea. I don't even know why or how I feel sick." 

"Really, Az?" Chara interrupted. "How do you not know where your food goes after you eat it?"

"It's not like anyone ever told me..."

"Well... I mean... You're... Okay, fair enough," he stuttered, mystified. "Frisk, aren't we _not_ supposed to touch people when we're sick?" He felt Asriel recoil with concern almost immediately.

"Um, we're not  _that_ kind of sick. I think. And we're both sick anyway, so it doesn't really matter."

"So we can keep hugging our squishy, cute, fluffy brother without any problems?" Chara teased, yanking Asriel deeper into the inseparable, unending hugging session.

"Ch-Chara!" The humans could feel the heat radiating intensely off of his cheeks. "I... I'm not-"

"You definitely are all three of those things," Frisk interrupted. 

"Hmph," Asriel huffed. "Well, you're cute, too! Just... Not fluffy."

"Thanks."

"Y-You're welcome," he stuttered. He felt a hand against his ear. "What are you doing?" The boss monster giggled as either Chara or Frisk began flopping his ear around. "Stoooop!" Frisk and Chara wanted to keep messing around with him, but they both began feeling increasingly ill as a result of the raised levels of activity. 

"Yeah... I feel really sick now," Frisk grumbled. "I hope we feel better tomorrow."

"Mom's healing magic only works for cuts and stuff... I hope she isn't too worried."

"Yeah. Goodnight, Az. I love you."

"I love you too, Frisk. And you, Chara!"

 _Chaaaraaa, I love youuu,_ they said as lovingly as they could manage solely to fluster Chara, yet their words knocked him out cold; he was fast asleep within mere seconds. 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fluff overload :)


	18. Chapter 18

Frisk and Asriel were the first ones awake, both feeling as awful as ever. Chara didn't quite feel the sickness as much due to him choosing to be as far out of Frisk's body as he could, so he would be able to enjoy a lengthy sleep while leaving his lifetime partner to put up with the oncoming sensation of throwing up. Frisk groaned and shuffled around, apprehensively letting go of Asriel and curling up into a ball to stifle the strange sensation in their stomach; that cake was even more damaging than the worst batches of Papyrus's hit-or-miss spaghetti.

"Wow... This is bad," he mumbled.

Frisk was still confused as to how Asriel could even get sick. From what they knew, monsters just magically absorbed their food. They overheard Chara thinking that he was just pretending to be sick for sympathy, and considering Asriel was so fond of their constant affection for him, it seemed plausible. Although, apparently boss monsters were similar to humans; maybe that wasn't the case. They didn't give a response as the door slowly creaked open. Whoever it was had made absolutely no noise coming up here, so it was definitely Toriel. For someone almost seven feet tall, the silence of her footsteps was truly astonishing. 

"Good morning!" She noticed they were awake and crept over to give her children affectionate hugs and kisses. "I see you are sleeping together," she giggled, thinking back to how adorable it was when she'd find Chara and Asriel huddled together beneath their blankets back in the underground. "You look very comfortable! Did you sleep well?"

"No," Frisk admitted. "We feel sick."

"Oh dear," she said, eyes widening for a moment. "What is wrong, my children?" She placed her huge hands upon their foreheads.

"We ate too much nice cream."

Toriel sighed before a relieved smirk emerged on her face. "...You silly children," she chuckled. "Well... You should be okay. If you need anything, do not hesitate to ask me, okay?" She smiled, revealing her much larger fangs. They were very blunt, however, and therefore not nearly as intimidating as Asgore's. "Um, Frisk, is Chara... available? Sorry, I do not quite know how this works."

Frisk performed the mental equivalent of tapping Chara on the shoulder.  _Chara?_

"He's still asleep."

"Ah. That is okay! I just wanted to apologize for leaving on such short notice. I just want you all to know..." She kneeled down by the bedside. "I am so glad that my children are happy again," she began. "When Asgore and I were dealing with the humans, I could not stop thinking about it. Shock, confusion, disbelief... But now, happiness." She paused for a moment and rubbed their heads, spreading out Frisk's messy hair and changing the direction of the permanently-upright tuft of fur on top of Asriel's head. "I had planned to celebrate with pie, however since you two feel sick..."

"We'll feel better soon!" It was like teasing. Toriel's butterscotch-cinnamon pie was  _divine_ ; they hoped that would be the case.

"Well... We will see! I know Chara's favourite is chocolate, some of which I noticed was missing from the refrigerator," she joked. "I will bring you some water to help you feel better, okay?" She gave the children yet another kiss and hurriedly but silently dashed downstairs.

"Az, do you actually feel that sick?" Frisk tried to sound curious rather than sound like they were trying to imply that Asriel was faking it. 

"Well... yeah." He didn't have an answer as to how that worked, so Frisk decided to ask Toriel when she came back.

With astounding speed, Toriel had already returned and held a tall glass of water in each hand. She put them down on the nightstand.

"Thanks, Mom," Asriel grumbled. The female boss monster pouted at her children's discomfort.

"Mom, how do monsters get sick?" Frisk asked.

"Well... although we do not digest food like you do, if we absorb too much of it we can begin to feel uncomfortable or disoriented." A bright smile suddenly appeared on her face. "Which reminds me, you three will be starting school in a few days! I will probably end up being your teacher for all of your classes so I can help you more often, and I will also be teaching you about monster anatomy."

Asriel turned to Frisk. "What's school like?"

They shrugged back at him. "I don't remember." They had been through a few years of school, but everything that happened before the first time they fell into the underground was just a blur. 

"It will be a new experience for you, then! I am sure you three will enjoy it. Anyway, Papyrus is... 'cooking' something, and I must watch over him." Frisk and Asriel smirked. "I will be downstairs if you need me, okay?" She kissed her children on the forehead before leaving the room.

"I don't wanna go to school," Asriel moaned.

"Why not?"

"Because it's scary."

"It won't be that bad," they reassured. "What do you think is scary about it?"

"Umm... Everything. Being around so many other people and stuff."

"You'll have me and Chara with you!" they giggled. "And, umm... We can't ever leave you, too!"

"...I guess. Thanks."

Frisk lay curled up in a ball while Asriel stared at the ceiling, ignoring Papyrus's booming and the crackling of Toriel's fire magic. Much to Toriel's dismay, the tall skeleton's cooking sessions often ended up being very intense. Upon learning that Undyne had burned down her own house in the underground and Asgore was forced to foot the bill, she politely made it clear to Papyrus that under no circumstances was she allowed to use any of the apparatuses in their kitchen. What she didn't know was that incident was partially Frisk's fault. 

"good morning."

Both of the children jerked upright and instinctively clutched each other in fear as a skeleton materialized out of thin air beside them.

"sheesh. just wanted to say hi."

"Umm, hi, Sans."

"hey. so you guys are sick from not reading the instructions on a cake mix box, aren't you?"

They both nodded with confusion. Sans was so strange at times; even after all this time he continued to pull out quirks and tricks that even Frisk had never seen before. Even under the assumption that Sans knew everything and was able to see and hear everything, he found ways to push his omniscience into more mystifying territories on a daily basis.

"i swear you guys are just looking for excuses to lie in bed and do nothing. that's all you've been doing for the past couple of days. heh. such a thing just comes naturally for me." The skeleton winked and shrugged, his palms still firmly planted in his jacket pockets. "anyway, when you guys feel better, you gotta come to the new grillby's with me later. i'm working on setting a ketchup drinking world record, and i'd love for you guys to witness my crowning moment. also, it'd be nice to have a chat."

"...Sure?"

"great. i'll leave you kids to it, then." The skeleton disappeared.

"Leave us to it? To what?" Asriel asked, ten times as confused as Frisk.

"Probably this," they said before wrapping their arms around Asriel again and pulling him closer so that their chests were touching and his face was almost resting on top of theirs. They gently rubbed their cheek against his, relishing in its enfeebling softness rather than the debilitating ache in their stomach. Asriel made an odd squeaking sound.

"Oh... You really like doing this, don't you?" He giggled.

"Yep." Asriel savoured the cuddle, forgetting about the tempting glasses of water beside them. Not being able to receive hugs, and also the fact that no one ever wanted to give him any, was probably one of the things he hated the most about being a flower, so he always welcomed them.

 

* * *

 

"NGAHHH!" Undyne furiously pounded the buttons on the controller without any visible pattern or coordination; Chara had to explain to Frisk that this was common amongst people who play fighting games. Undyne had become totally obsessed with them ever since Papyrus brought some over, saying that "It's just like anime, except you get to control it!" This fighting game was her favourite, and she was rather good at it. The children began feeling better rather quickly, as if Toriel had silently put some sort of healing spell on them, and were now on the couch watching Undyne furiously combat against a series of rather intimidating characters. 

 _She sucks at this game,_ Chara scoffed.  _Can I fight her?_

 _Ask her,_ they insisted.

_Can you do it?_

_Why?_

_For obvious reasons..._

_She won't know it's you, Chara._

_Fine._

With a final strike of the controller, Undyne defeated her opponent. "This game looks fun, huh? Too bad you sissies can't play it!" She held up the game's box and pointed to a sticker that read "18+" in the corner. "Although... Since your mother isn't around to burn your guys butts, you wanna play?" When Toriel said she needed to get some groceries, Papyrus insistently offered to take her in his brand new car.

Chara nodded passionately. "I wanna fight you!" 

"HAH! How cute! Well, if you're into losing, I won't stop you!" Undyne handed another controller over to Chara. "By the way, you might need both hands," she teased. Both of the children blushed and slowly let go of each other's differently-shaped hands. "Whenever you're ready, punk!" 

Chara smirked as he tapped start, and they were prompted to select their characters. Undyne chose the same cyborg-like combatant she had been using this whole time, and Asriel stared in wonder at the vast array of awesome-looking characters to choose from. 

"Which one, Az?" He turned to face his beaming brother with a smug grin. "I can beat her with any of them, so choose any you want." Undyne was seething behind him.

"Hmm... That one!" Asriel pointed to a white-robed ninja with a really cool mask and two swords on his back. Chara snickered as he made the selection and the game began. Before Undyne could even react, Chara was fervently tapping the buttons in a way that only Frisk was able to understand, and she lost the first round in less than thirty seconds.

"Beginner's luck, huh?? How do you like THIS!" Undyne launched a special attack at Chara as the second round began, however he easily ducked under it and was able to launch yet another merciless flurry of combinations that Undyne was powerless against. His character swung their swords, threw magic missiles, punched, kicked, and threw Undyne's character about like a ragdoll. Undyne began visibly shaking as she tried to keep up with the human's superior ability, while Chara seemed to be enjoying himself somewhat.

 _You're really good at this,_ Frisk observed. 

 _I played a game like this all the time before I fell down._ Chara spoke calmly as his character threw their sword at Undyne's and he defeated them once more.

"That was easy," he remarked, requiring Undyne to indulge in some breathing exercises to prevent a spear being thrown into the wall.

"...I would say something like 'you wouldn't win if it was a real fight,' but we both know how that would go!" She released her crushing grip on the poor plastic controller and looked at the human. "Hey, what's that? You two have never taken it off." She raised a scaly finger at Chara's chest; she wasn't really interested in what she saw, but needed something to distract herself from the devastating yet infuriating feeling of losing to a kid.

"This?" He pulled his heart locket out from beneath his green and yellow sweater and held it up for Undyne to see. Asriel leaned over his brother's shoulder to get a closer look.

"Yeah. Is it like a friendship necklace or something?"

"I guess." Chara flipped it open and showed Undyne the small picture and engraved message.  _"Best friends forever._ " Asriel grabbed his one and inspected it; they were both identical.

_You know that's you in that photo, right?_

_Yep. Good on her if she figures it out._

_You want her to?_ Frisk seemed happy and gave Chara some encouragement.

_Yeah. She's cool._

"Huh. That photo looks really old. Really, really old. Can I look at it closer?" She leaned in and squinted her remaining eye to examine the tiny image even closer before raising an eyebrow. Asriel was there, but the other person was definitely not Frisk. "...Frisk, where did you find this?"

"Asgore's home."

"...And if I'm not mistaken, this does not belong to you?" She questioned.

"It does."

Undyne sighed and pointed very closely to the image of Chara. "Frisk, that kid. That kid isn't you." She recognized it to be Asgore's adoptive son immediately and found it strange, almost disrespectful that Frisk had been wearing it. They must've found it in that room he never let her enter, which she presumed to be Asriel and Chara's room.

"Uhh... It is. Sort of." He felt Asriel's hand close over his, and he grasped it back softly. "It's me. I'm still alive. Frisk and I share the same body. If you don't believe me, then you can ask Asgore himself," he blurted awkwardly.

"Really?" Undyne stared blankly for a moment, her face shifting through a range of expressions including shock, happiness, confusion, and sadness. "Err... I don't even know what to say. Your name is Chara, right?"

"Yes."

"...Huh. That explains a lot. And I'm not even going to pretend that I understand how that works, but... Asgore knows you're here, right?" They both nodded. "That's why he's been so happy lately... Well, welcome back, kid." Undyne's voice trailed off as she couldn't handle the sappy mood much longer which Chara appreciated, and she required an uproar in activity before she would eventually collapse out of boredom. "By the way, that was you I was fighting, wasn't it?"

"It was. I'm good, aren't I?"

"That explains everything! Frisk is USELESS at fighting!"

"Then why couldn't you kill me when we fought back at Waterfall, huh?" Frisk teased.

"Woah, that's weird. Your voice changed! How did I not notice that before?"

"Don't try and change the subject," Frisk jested.

"Fine! Well... That doesn't count! Running away isn't part of fighting!" 

"You know... It's called dodging, not running away," Chara added, resisting the urge to make a comment about how he'd killed her in the past because she never even attempted to dodge. 

"Whatever!" She shouted. "By the way... You guys like, share a body?"

"Yep." Frisk interrupted, volunteering to be the one to answer Undyne's inevitable questions.

"So... Is it like, one person controlling at a time?" She seemed intrigued, which was totally contradictory to her ignorant personality.

"It was a long time ago, but we've gotten used to it so now we can pretty much do whatever."

"What happens if you two don't agree on something?"

"They sit there and fight over it until someone gives up," Asriel clarified. "It's really funny."

"Hmm... And, are you guys like, a love triangle or something?" Undyne said admiringly.

"What??" They stuttered bashfully as both of their faces immediately flushed with redness.

"Well, you guys obviously like doing that gross lovey stuff."

"Umm..."

"Wow. Your cheeks are so red, I can see it through your fur!" She snickered. Before Undyne could torment them even more, Papyrus burst through the door carrying several large bags of uncooked spaghetti while Toriel followed holding only a small bag of various ingredients. Undyne hastily switched off the television so the monster queen wouldn't see the violent image on the television and then faked an unsuspecting, nonchalant pose on the couch. The two children rushed over to Toriel, glad for the diffusion of the awkward situation, and did their best to hug her with their arms barely reaching up to her knees.

"Hello, my children! Are you feeling better?"

"I think so," Asriel mumbled.

"Excellent! It is settled, then. We will be having pie for dinner!"

"Yay!" The kids squealed in unison.

"BUT WHAT ABOUT ALL OF THIS CUMBERSOME SPAGHETTI?" Papyrus interrupted, holding up the insane number of shopping bags filled with spaghetti and sauce.

"Err... Maybe some other time, Papyrus." By the time she would cave in and let Papyrus cook spaghetti, they would have had to throw it all out; Papyrus's room was simply overflowing with the stuff.

"I UNDERSTAND, YOUR MAJESTY!" He dashed off to his room to store all the spaghetti in his wardrobe. Since Toriel would not allow him to raise the sink to allow for more storage space, and the refrigerator was already filled to the brim with spaghetti, he had no choice but to begin depositing in his own room.

"hey, tori."

"Oh! Hello, Sans. I didn't see you there."

"heh. i know," he remarked. "i was wondering if i could - with their permission - take the kids down to grillby's afterward to watch me go for a world record?"

One of Toriel's eyebrows raised. "...Okay. World record?" She looked at her children, who all seemed okay with it.

"yep. ketchup drinking."

"Umm. That... That is strange. But, if they would like to, then I do not see why not."

"thanks."

"Sans, what is the current world record for ketchup drinking??" Undyne inquired.

"there is none. i'm going to set it."

"Why don't you just drink one bottle? Then you'll technically have the world record!"

"well, doing this is actually a very courageous act that goes against all of my core values and beliefs," he said sarcastically. "believe it or not, i actually plan to set the bar quite high."

"What??? Is this a joke? Sans actually working toward something? Well, good luck, then! You're gonna need it!" 

"heh.  _phalanx_ for your support. well, i better help papyrus cram all that spaghetti into his wardrobe. i'm sure i can make it all fit." The skeleton vanished.

"I give up trying to understand him," Undyne sighed.

Toriel looked down at her children, whom she had not noticed had been holding hands and smiling at each other in silence for quite some time. "You must love each other so much. It is so precious!" She rubbed their heads and made her way to the kitchen to begin cooking.

 

* * *

 

"One thousand, three hundred and thirty eight," Grillby murmured. Sans slammed his skeletal hand down on the counter as the two children beside him stared with worry. There was no one but Sans, Asriel, Frisk, and Grillby himself in the cozy restaurant, which was exactly identical in layout to the one in Snowdin. "This is getting ridiculous." It was almost closing time, which was conveniently shortly before their family's scheduled dinner time which would spare Sans from Toriel's fury. 

"one more."

"Sans, you-"

"i mean, i've basically depleted your supply. one more wouldn't hurt."

"You've got one hell of a tab to pay off, pal," the walking flame chuckled. He quickly dashed into the fire exit, which Frisk was never able to use at his store in Snowdin because they weren't made of fire.

"Sans, will you ever pay your tab?" They asked.

"i'm sitting here with the kid who broke the barrier and the monster prince himself. that's gotta be worth at least a one hundred percent discount."

"Not quite, Sans." Grillby slid a ketchup bottle down the polished wooden counter for Sans to catch and empty its contents into his mouth within seconds. "Well, there you go. One thousand, three hundred and thirty nine bottles of ketchup chugged down consecutively. And I'm sure you would've gotten higher if I had more ketchup."

"yep." Sans picked up a video camera off of the counter which he said would later serve as evidence for his world record. Grillby wiped down the counter and retreated back into the fire exit.

"...Sans, why did you bring us here?" Frisk questioned.

"kid, not everything has some sinister or deep meaning. relax." He chuckled. 

"What does it feel like?" Asriel interjected. "Do you feel sick?"

"nope." 

"...Sans, where has Alphys been?" They asked randomly, noticing they hadn't seen her in a while.

"uhh... well, originally, i thought mettaton had broken or something and she was grieving over him in her lab. but that couldn't be the case, because i saw mettaton leave this morning."

"Umm... Then what?" Frisk expected something bad to have happened to her.

"according to undyne, 'mew mew kissy cutie 3' was so bad that she needed a couple of days to get over it. apparently the process involves lots of sulking and eating." He studied the brief change in Frisk's expression and deduced it to be one of relief. "say, kid. didn't i just say not everything has some sinister part to it?"

"You did. And I guess you're right."

"that's the spirit. let's go home, shall we?"

They were suddenly in their room, and Sans was nowhere to be seen. Asriel looked around for a moment with confusion but was pacified by the smell of Toriel's pie. Before rushing downstairs, however, he made sure his eternal soulmate's hand was firmly wrapped around his own. Frisk's hand was unbelievably smooth and Asriel's fur was ridiculously soft and they both loved that about holding each other's hand; they were unlikely to stop anytime soon, however unnecessary it was. They proceeded downstairs slowly so they could enjoy each other's company for longer during this random moment of sudden affection.

"Ah! My children!"

"Howdy," Asgore thundered. "It is good to see you! Tori has prepared one of her famous pies for us." They were sitting across from each other at their table, Asgore looking rather ridiculous trying to fit his colossal legs beneath it. The children climbed up onto the chairs, beaming at the sight of the elegantly-prepared slices of pie that had been crowned with a generous puff of whipped cream.

"Famous indeed; I hear attempts at a recipe were even found in a rubbish bin at New Home!" She teased. Asgore chuckled and took another bite of the pie.

Although it was considerably harder to eat with one arm, none of them ever tried to let go of the other's hand. Chara and Frisk were fighting over who would get to eat the next bite, and it was visible who overcame the other by how they ate. Asriel took small and careful bites of his piece.

"Hungry, are you, Chara?" Asgore asked.

"Not really," he affirmed. "I just missed the taste."

"Ah. Err... Will we be required to feed you twice as much, now?"

Chara wanted to say yes and specify that they would require chocolate, but Frisk interrupted him. "I don't think so."

"That is good," the monster queen spoke. "What about you, Asriel? You must be very hungry."

"Not anymore!" The pie was very filling, and both of the children had finished their slices with satisfaction already. Toriel decided to go easy on the size due to the fact they had just recently become sick from eating too much.

"You finished that very quickly," Asgore noticed. "...Chara. Asriel. It is good to have you back. And, Frisk... Thank you."

Frisk just smiled back and squeezed their brother's hand.

"Frisk, you have done a great deal for monster kind and our family," Toriel began. "But, if you do not mind me asking, what about your previous family?"

Their happy smile slowly washed off. "I, umm... I don't know."

"Frisk... Where did you stay before you fell down?" Frisk tried to remember something, but the more they tried, the more it slipped away. They'd catch a brief glimpse of maybe a familiar face in their mind, before it would escape and they'd never see it again. Everything was just drowned out by memories of all the resets they had endured while trying to help Asriel.

It was the first time Chara or Asriel had seen Frisk's eternally stoic and happy composure start faltering as they noticed their eyes were watering.

"I... I can't remember. I w-want to, but I c-can't. I don't r-remember a-anything anymore..." Toriel covered her mouth and looked at Asgore with fright.

"Frisk," Asgore spoke. "We are so sorry. You do not have to talk about this if you do not wish to do so. You are part of our family now."

"Th-thank you."

_Are you okay?_

_Yes._

_Do you wanna talk about it?_

_Not now._

"Well... I hate to be the bearer of bad news," she said jokingly, trying to lighten the mood. "But it is time for bed, my children! Asgore would like to continue your magic training tomorrow, Asriel." Asriel beamed and attempted to conjure a flame, however he felt too tired.

Rather than groaning and protesting, they happily held each other's hand back to their room. Their bed looked very welcoming compared to the one on the other side of the room which had not been used for a long time.

"Frisk, umm... Are you-"

"Don't worry about it."

"B-But you were almost crying, and..."

"I know..." They dragged Asriel into bed and turned off the lights, entombing themselves beneath their deep purple blankets.

"Are you sure you're okay?"

"...Yes," they muttered as they both lay on their backs staring upward. Frisk wanted to forget about everything before they fell down, but at the same time they wished they had memories of it. It was harrowing to them, not knowing where they came from.

He could tell they weren't. "Frisk... It's okay to be not okay. We can talk about it later if you want." Frisk felt their eyes watering up again before Chara forcibly took over and hugged Asriel tightly, planting his misty eyes in his matching sweater, then let Frisk back into their body. Frisk didn't move as their brother's soft arm closed around them.

_Cry baby._

_..._

_Sorry. I love_ _you._ _Please don't be mad at_ _me,_ he panicked. _I'm really-_

_I love you too._

"Thanks, Asriel."

"It's okay." 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I won't be able to write over the weekend due to stuff, sorry :(


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